minicom.1
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- ." This file Copyright 1992,93 Michael K. Johnson (johnsonm@stolaf.edu)
- ." Copyright 1995,1996 Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels@cistron.nl>
- ." Copyright 1997-1999 Jukka Lahtinen <walker@clinet.fi>
- ." It may be distributed under the GNU Public License, version 2, or
- ." any higher version. See section COPYING of the GNU Public license
- ." for conditions under which this file may be redistributed.
- .TH MINICOM 1 "14 Nov 1999" "User's Manual"
- .SH NAME
- minicom - friendly serial communication program
- .SH SYNOPSIS
- .B minicom
- .RI "[-somlz8] [-c on|off] [-S script] [-d entry]"
- .br
- .in 15
- .RI "[-a on|off] [-t term] [-p pty] [-C capturefile] [" configuration ]
- .SH DESCRIPTION
- .B minicom
- is a communication program which somewhat resembles the shareware
- program TELIX but is free with source code and runs under most unices.
- Features include dialing directory with auto-redial, support for
- UUCP-style lock files on serial devices, a seperate script language
- interpreter, capture to file, multiple users with individual
- configurations, and more.
- .SH COMMAND-LINE
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -s
- .BR S etup.
- Root edits the system-wide defaults in /etc/minirc.dfl with this option.
- When it is used, minicom does
- .I not
- initialize, but puts you directly into the
- configuration menu. This is very handy if minicom refuses to start up
- because your system has changed, or for the first time you run
- minicom. For most systems, reasonable defaults are already compiled in.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -o
- Do not initialize. Minicom will skip the initialization code. This
- option is handy if you quitted from minicom without resetting, and
- then want to restart a session. It is potentially dangerous though: no
- check for lock files etc. is made, so a normal user could interfere
- with things like uucp... Maybe this will be taken out later. For now
- it is assumed, that users who are given access to a modem are
- responsible enough for their actions.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -m
- Override command-key with the Meta or ALT key. This is the default in 1.80
- and it can also be configured in one of minicom's menus, but if you use
- different terminals all the time, of which some don't have a Meta or ALT key,
- it's handy to set the default command key to Ctrl-A and use this option
- when you have a keyboard supporting Meta or ALT keys. Minicom
- assumes that your Meta key sends the ESC prefix, not the other variant
- that sets the highest bit of the character.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -M
- Same as -m, but assumes that your Meta key sets the 8th bit of the
- character high (sends 128 + character code).
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -z
- Use terminal status line. This only works on terminals that support it
- and that have the relevant information in their fItermcapfP or
- fIterminfofP database entry.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -l
- .BR L iteral
- translation of characters with the high bit set. With this flag on,
- minicom will not try to translate the IBM line characters to ASCII,
- but passes them straight trough. Many PC-unix clones will display
- them correctly without translation (Linux in a special mode, Coherent
- and Sco).
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -a
- .BR A ttribute
- usage. Some terminals, notably televideo's, have a rotten attribute
- handling (serial instead of parallel). By default, minicom uses '-a
- on', but if you are using such a terminal you can (must!) supply the
- option '-a off'. The trailing 'on' or 'off' is needed.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -t
- .BR T erminal
- type. With this flag, you can override the environment TERM variable.
- This is handy for use in the MINICOM environment variable; one can create
- a special termcap entry for use with minicom on the console, that
- initializes the screen to raw mode so that in conjunction with the -l
- flag, the IBM line characters are displayed untranslated.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -c
- .BR C olor
- usage. Some terminals (such as the Linux console) support color with
- the standard ANSI escape sequences. Because there is apparently no
- termcap support for color, these escape sequences are hard-coded into
- minicom. Therefore this option is off by default. You can turn it on
- with '-c on'. This, and the '-m' option, are good candidates to put
- into the MINICOM environment variable.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -S
- .BR script .
- Run the named script at startup. So far, passing username and password
- to a startup script is not supported. If you also use the -d option to
- start dialing at startup, the -S script will be run BEFORE dialing the
- entries specified with -d.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -d
- .BR D ial
- an entry from the dialing directory on startup. You can specify an
- index number, but also a substring of the name of the entry. If you
- specify a name that has multiple entries in the directory, they are all
- tagged for dialing. You can also specify multiple names or index numbers
- by separating them with commas. The dialing will start from the first
- entry specified after all other program initialization procedures are
- completed.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -p
- .BR P seudo
- terminal
- to use. This overrrides the terminal port defined in the configuration
- files, but only if it is a pseudo tty. The filename supplied must be of
- the form (/dev/)tty[p-z][0-f].
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -C
- .BR filename .
- Open capture file at startup.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B -8
- '8bit clean' and 'continuous' mode. '8bit clean' means Minicom let
- 8bit characters pass through without any modification. 'Continuous'
- means no locate/attribute control sequences are inserted without
- real change of locate/attribute. This mode is to display 8bit
- multibyte characters such as Japanese. Not needed in every language with
- 8bit characters. (For example displaying Finnish text doesn't need this.)
- .PP
- .RS 0.5i
- When
- .B minicom
- starts, it first searches the MINICOM environment variable for
- command-line arguments, which can be over-ridden on the command line.
- Thus, if you have done
- .PP
- .RS 0.5i
- .PD 0
- MINICOM='-m -c on'
- .PP
- export MINICOM
- .PP
- .PD 1
- .PP
- .RE
- or the equivalent, and start minicom, minicom will assume that your
- terminal
- .I has
- a Meta or <ALT> key and that color is supported. If you then log in
- from a terminal without color support, and you have set MINICOM in your
- startup (.profile or equivalent) file, and don't want to re-set your
- environment variable, you can type 'minicom -c off' and run without
- color support for that session.
- .RE
- .TP 0.5i
- .B configuration
- The
- .I configuration
- argument is more interesting. Normally, minicom gets its defaults from
- a file called "minirc.dfl". If you however give an argument to
- minicom, it will try to get its defaults from a file called
- "minirc.fIconfigurationfR|". So it is possible to create multiple
- configuration files, for different ports, different users etc. Most
- sensible is to use device names, such as tty1, tty64, sio2 etc. If a
- user creates his own configuration file, it will show up in his home
- directory as '.minirc.dfl'.
- .SH USE
- Minicom is windows-based. To popup a window with the function you
- want, press Control-A (from now on, we will use C-A to mean
- Control-A), and then the function key (a-z or A-Z). By pressing C-A
- first and then 'z', a help screen comes up with a short summary of all
- commands. This escape key can be altered when minicom is configured
- (-s option or C-A O), but we'll stick to Control-A for now.
- .PP
- .PD 0
- For every menu the next keys can be used:
- .TP 0.75i
- .B UP
- arrow-up or 'k'
- .TP 0.75i
- .B DOWN
- arrow-down or 'j'
- .TP 0.75i
- .B LEFT
- arrow-left or 'h'
- .TP 0.75i
- .B RIGHT
- arrow-right or 'l'
- .TP 0.75i
- .B CHOOSE
- Enter
- .TP 0.75i
- .B CANCEL
- ESCape.
- .PD 1
- .PP
- The screen is divided into two portions: the upper 24 lines are the
- terminal-emulator screen. In this window, ANSI or VT100 escape
- sequences are interpreted. If there is a line left at the
- bottom, a status line is placed there. If this is not possible the
- status line will be showed every time you press C-A. On terminals
- that have a special status line that will be used if the termcap
- information is complete fIandfP the fB-kfP flag has been given.
- .PP
- .PD 0
- Possible commands are listed next, in alphabetical order.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B C-A
- Pressing C-A a second time will just send a C-A to the remote system.
- If you have changed your "escape character" to something other than
- C-A, this works analogously for that character.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B A
- Toggle 'Add Linefeed' on/off. If it is on, a linefeed is added before
- every carriage return displayed on the screen.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B B
- Gives you a scroll back buffer. You can scroll up with fBufP, down with
- fBdfP, a page up with fBbfP, a page down with fBffP, and if you have them
- the fBarrowfP and fBpage up/page downfP keys can also be used. You can
- search for text in the buffer with fBsfP (case-sensitive) or fBSfP
- (case-insensitive). fBNfP will find the next occurrence of the string.
- fBcfP will enter citation mode. A text cursor appears and you
- specify the start line by hitting Enter key. Then scroll back mode will
- finish and the contents with prefix '>' will be sent.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B C
- Clears the screen.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B D
- Dial a number, or go to the dialing directory.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B E
- Toggle local echo on and off (if your version of minicom supports it).
- .TP 0.5i
- .B F
- A break signal is sent to the modem.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B G
- Run script (Go). Runs a login script.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B H
- Hangup.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B I
- Toggle the type of escape sequence that the cursor keys send between
- normal and applications mode. (See also the comment about the status
- line below).
- .TP 0.5i
- .B J
- Jump to a shell. On return, the whole screen will be redrawn.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B K
- Clears the screen, runs kermit and redraws the screen upon return.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B L
- Turn Capture file on off. If turned on, all output sent to the screen
- will be captured in the file too.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B M
- Sends the modem initialization string. If you are online and the DCD line
- setting is on, you are asked for confirmation before the modem is
- initialized.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B O
- Configure minicom. Puts you in the configuration menu.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B P
- Communication Parameters. Allows you to change the bps rate, parity and
- number of bits.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B Q
- Exit minicom without resetting the modem. If macros changed and were not
- saved, you will have a chance to do so.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B R
- Receive files. Choose from various protocols (external). If you have the
- filename selection window and the prompt for download directory enabled,
- you'll get a selection window for choosing the directory for
- downloading. Otherwise the download directory defined in the Filenames and
- paths menu will be used.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B S
- Send files. Choose the protocol like you do with the receive command. If
- you don't have the filename selection window enabled (in the File transfer
- protocols menu), you'll just have to write the filename(s) in a dialog
- window. If you have the selection window enabled, a window will pop up
- showing the filenames in your upload directory. You can tag and untag
- filenames by pressing spacebar, and move the cursor up and down with the
- cursor keys or j/k. The selected filenames are shown highlighted. Directory
- names are shown [within brackets] and you can move up or down in the
- directory tree by pressing the spacebar twice. Finally, send the files by
- pressing ENTER or quit by pressing ESC.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B T
- Choose Terminal emulation: Ansi(color) or vt100.
- You can also change the backspace key here, turn the status line on or off,
- and define delay (in milliseconds) after each newline if you need that.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B W
- Toggle linewrap on/off.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B X
- Exit minicom, reset modem. If macros changed and were not saved, you will
- have a chance to do so.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B Z
- Pop up the help screen.
- .PD 1
- .SH "DIALING DIRECTORY"
- By pressing C-A D the program puts you in the dialing directory. Select a
- command by pressing the capitalized letter or moving cursor right/left with
- the arrow keys or the h/l keys and pressing Enter. You can add, delete or
- edit entries and move them up and down in the directory list. By choosing
- "dial" the phone numbers of the tagged entries, or if nothing is tagged,
- the number of the highlighted entry will be dialed. While the modem is
- dialing, you can press escape to cancel dialing. Any other key will close
- the dial window, but won't cancel the dialing itself. Your dialing
- directory will be saved into a the file ".dialdir" in your home directory.
- You can scroll up and down with the arrow keys, but you can also scroll
- complete pages by pressing the PageUp or PageDown key. If you don't have
- those, use Control-B (Backward) and Control-F (Forward). You can use the
- space bar to fBtagfP a number of entries and minicom will rotate trough
- this list if a connection can't be made. A '>' symbol is drawn in the
- directory before the names of the tagged entries.
- .PP
- The "edit" menu speaks for itself, but I will discuss it briefly here.
- .PD 0
- .TP 1.0i
- .B A - Name
- The name for this entry
- .TP 1.0i
- .B B - Number
- and its telephone number.
- .TP 1.0i
- .B C - Dial string #
- Which specific dial string you want to use to connect. There are three
- different dial strings (prefixes and suffixes) that can be configured
- in the fBModem and dialingfP menu.
- .TP 1.0i
- .B D - Local echo
- can be on or off for this system (if your version of minicom supports it).
- .TP 1.0i
- .B E - Script
- The script that must be executed after a succesfull connection is made
- (see the manual for runscript)
- .TP 1.0i
- .B F - Username
- The username that is passed to the runscript program. It
- is passed in the environment string "$LOGIN".
- .TP 1.0i
- .B G - Password
- The password is passed as "$PASS".
- .TP 1.0i
- .B H - Terminal Emulation
- Use ANSI or VT100 emulation.
- .TP 1.0i
- .B I - Backspace key sends
- What code (Backspace or Delete) the backspace key sends.
- .TP 1.0i
- .B J - Linewrap
- Can be on or off.
- .TP 1.0i
- .B K - Line settings
- Bps rate, bits and parity to use for this connection. You can choose
- fBcurrentfP for the speed, so that it will use whatever speed is being
- used at that moment (useful if you have multiple modems).
- .TP 1.0i
- .B L - Conversion table
- You may spacify a character conversion table to be loaded whenever this
- entry answers, before running the login script. If this field is blank,
- the conversion table stays unchanged.
- .PP
- .PD 1
- The edit menu also shows the latest date and time when you called this
- entry and the total number of calls there, but doesn't let you change them.
- They are updated automatically when you connect.
- .PD 1
- .PP
- The moVe command lets you move the highlighted entry up or down in the
- dialing directory with the up/down arrow keys or the k and j keys. Press
- Enter or ESC to end moving the entry.
- .PP
- .SH CONFIGURATION
- By pressing C-A O you will be thrown into the setup menu. Most
- settings there can be changed by everyone, but some are restricted
- to root only. Those priviliged settings are marked with a star (*) here.
- .PP
- .PD 0
- .B "Filenames and paths"
- .PP
- .RS 0.25i
- This menu defines your default directories.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B A - Download directory
- where the downloaded files go to.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B B - Upload directory
- where the uploaded files are read from.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B C - Script directory
- Where you keep your login scripts.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B D - Script program
- Which program to use as the script interpreter. Defaults to the
- program "runscript", but if you want to use something else (eg,
- /bin/sh or "expect") it is possible. Stdin and stdout are connected
- to the modem, stderr to the screen.
- .RS 0.5i
- If the path is relative (ie, does not start with a slash) then it's
- relative to your home directory, except for the script interpreter.
- .RE
- .TP 0.5i
- .B E - Kermit program
- Where to find the executable for kermit, and it's options. Some simple
- macro's can be used on the command line: '%l' is expanded to the
- complete filename of the dial out-device, '%f' is expanded to the serial
- port file descriptor and '%b' is expanded to the current serial port speed.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B F - Logging options
- Options to configure the logfile writing.
- .RS 0.5i
- .PD 1
- .TP 0.5i
- .B A - File name
- Here you can enter the name of the logfile. The file will be written in
- your home directory, and the default value is "minicom.log".
- If you blank the name, all logging is turned off.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B B - Log connects and hangups
- This option defines whether or not the logfile is written when the remote
- end answers the call or hangs up. Or when you give the hangup command
- yourself or leave minicom without hangup while online.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B C - Log file transfers
- Do you want log entries of receiving and sending files.
- .RE
- The 'log' command in the scripts is not affected by logging options B and C.
- It is always executed, if you just have the name of the log file defined.
- .RE
- .PD 1
- .PP
- .B "File Transfer Protocols"
- .PD 0
- .PP
- .RS 0.25i
- Protocols defined here will show up when C-A s/r is pressed. "Name" in the
- beginning of the line is the name that will show up in the menu. "Program"
- is the path to the protocol. "Name" after that defines if the program needs
- an argument, eg. a file to be transmitted. U/D defines if this entry should
- show up in the upload or the download menu. Fullscr defines if the program
- should run full screen, or that minicom will only show it's stderr in a
- window. IO-Red defines if minicom should attach the program's standard in
- and output to the modem port or not. "Multi" tells the filename selection
- window whether or not the protocol can send multiple files with one
- command. It has no effect on download protocols, and it is also ignored
- with upload protocols if you don't use the filename selection window. The
- old sz and rz are not full screen, and have IO-Red set. However, there are
- curses based versions of at least rz that do not want their stdin and
- stdout redirected, and run full screen. All file transfer protocols are
- run with the UID of the user, and not with UID=root. '%l', '%f' and '%b'
- can be used on the command line as with kermit. Within this menu you can
- also define if you want to use the filename selection window when prompted
- for files to upload, and if you like to be prompted for the download
- directory every time the automatic download is started. If you leave the
- download directory prompt disabled, the download directory defined in the
- file and directory menu is used.
- .RE
- .PD 1
- .PP
- .B "Serial port setup"
- .RS 0.25i
- .PD 0
- .TP 0.5i
- .B *A - Serial device
- /dev/tty1 or /dev/ttyS1 for most people.
- /dev/cua<n> is still possible under linux, but not recommended any more
- because these devices are obsolete and many newly installed systems
- with kernel 2.2.x don't have them.
- Use /dev/ttyS<n> instead.
- You may also have /dev/modem as a symlink to the real device.
- .br
- If you have modems connected to two or more serial ports, you may specify
- all of them here in a list separated by space, comma or semicolon. When
- Minicom starts, it checks the list until it finds an available modem and
- uses that one. (However, you can't specify different init strings to
- them ..at least not yet.)
- .TP 0.5i
- .B *B - Lock file location
- On most systems This should be /usr/spool/uucp. Linux systems use
- /var/lock. If this directory does not exist,
- minicom will not attempt to use lockfiles.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B *C - Callin program
- If you have a uugetty or something on your serial port, it could be
- that you want a program to be run to switch the modem cq. port into
- dialin/dialout mode. This is the program to get into dialin mode.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B *D - Callout program
- And this to get into dialout mode.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B E - Bps/Par/Bits
- Default parameters at startup.
- .PD 1
- .PP
- If one of the entries is left blank, it will not be used. So if you
- don't care about locking, and don't have a getty running on your
- modemline, entries B - D should be left blank. Be warned! The callin
- and callout programs are run with the effective user id of "root", eg
- 0!
- .RE
- .PP
- .B "Modem and Dialing"
- .PD 0
- .PP
- .RS 0.25i
- Here, the parameters for your modem are defined. I will not explain
- this further because the defaults are for generic Hayes modems, and
- should work always. This file is not a Hayes tutorial :-) The only
- things worth noticing are that control characters can be sent by
- prefixing them with a '^', in which '^^' means '^' itself, and the '\'
- character must also be doubled as '\\', because backslash is used
- specially in the macro definitions. Some options however, don't have
- much to do with the modem but more with the behaviour of minicom itself:
- .PP
- .TP 0.5i
- .B M - Dial time
- The number of seconds before minicom times out if no connection is
- established.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B N - Delay before redial
- Minicom will redial if no connection was made, but it first waits some
- time.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B O - Number of tries
- Maximum number of times that minicom attempts to dial.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B P - Drop DTR time
- If you set this to 0, minicom hangs up by sending a Hayes-type hangup
- sequence. If you specify a non-zero value, the hangup will be done by
- dropping the DTR line. The value tells in seconds how long DTR will be
- kept down.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B Q - Auto bps detect
- If this is on, minicom tries to match the dialed party's speed.
- With most modern modems this is NOT desirable, since the modem buffers
- the data and converts the speed.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B R - Modem has DCD line
- If your modem, and your O/S both support the DCD line (that goes 'high'
- when a connection is made) minicom will use it. When you have this option
- on, minicom will also NOT start dialing while you are already online.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B S - Status line shows DTE speed / line speed
- You can toggle the status line to show either the DTE speed (the speed
- which minicom uses to communicate with your modem) or the line speed
- (the speed that your modem uses on the line to communicate with the
- other modem). Notice that the line speed may change during the connection,
- but you will still only see the initial speed that the modems started
- the connection with. This is because the modem doesn't tell the program
- if the speed is changed. Also, to see the line speed, you need to have
- the modem set to show it in the connect string.
- Otherwise you will only see 0 as the line speed.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B T - Multi-line untag
- You can toggle the feature to untag entries from the dialing directory when
- a connection is established to a multi-line BBS. All the tagged entries that
- have the same name are untagged.
- .PD 1
- .PP
- .RE
- .RS 0.5i
- .B Note that a special exception is made for this menu: every user
- .B can change all parameters here, but some of them will not be saved.
- .RE
- .PP
- .B "Screen and keyboard"
- .RS 0.25i
- .PD 0
- .TP 0.5i
- .B A - Command key is
- the 'Hot Key' that brings you into command mode. If this is set
- to 'ALT' or 'meta key', you can directly call commands
- by alt-key instead of HotKey-key.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B B - Backspace key sends
- There still are some systems that want a VT100 to send DEL instead of
- BS. With this option you can enable that stupidity. (Eh, it's even on
- by default...)
- .TP 0.5i
- .B C - Status line is
- Enabled or disabled. Some slow terminals (for example, X-terminals)
- cause the status line to jump "up and down" when scrolling, so you can
- turn it off if desired. It will still be shown in command-mode.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B D - Alarm sound
- If turned on, minicom will sound an alarm (on the console only) after
- a succesfull connection and when up/downloading is complete.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B E - Foreground Color (menu)
- indicates
- the foreground color to use for all the configuration windows in minicom.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B F - Background Color (menu)
- indicates the background color to use for
- all the configuration windows in minicom. Note that minicom will not allow
- you to set forground and background colors to the same value.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B G - Foreground Color (term)
- indicates the foreground color to use in the terminal window.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B H - Background Color (term)
- indicates the background color to use in
- the terminal window. Note that minicom will not allow you to set forground
- and background colors to the same value.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B I - Foreground Color (stat)
- indicates the foreground color to use in for the status bar.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B J - Background Color (stat)
- indicates the color to use in for the
- status bar. Note that minicom will allow you to set the status bar's
- forground and background colors to the same value. This will effectively
- make the status bar invisible but if these are your intensions, please
- see the option
- .TP 0.5i
- .B K - History buffer size
- The number of lines to keep in the history buffer (for backscrolling).
- .TP 0.5i
- .B L - Macros file
- is the full path to the file that holds
- macros. Macros allow you to define a string to be sent when you press
- a certain key. In minicom, you may define F1 through F10 to send
- up to 256 characters [this is set at compile time]. The filename you
- specify is verified as soon as you hit ENTER. If you do not have permissions
- to create the specified file, an error message will so indicate and you
- will be forced to re-edit the filename. If you are permitted to create
- the file, minicom checks to see if it already exists. If so, it assumes
- it's a macro file and reads it in. If it isn't, well, it's your problem :-)
- If the file does not exist, the filename is accepted.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B M - Edit Macros
- opens up a new window
- which allows you to edit the F1 through F10 macros.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B N - Macros enabled
- - Yes or No. If macros are disabled, the F1-F10
- keys will just send the VT100/VT220 function key escape sequences.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B O - Character conversion
- The active conversion table filename is shown here. If you can see no
- name, no conversion is active. Pressing O, you will see the conversion
- table edit menu.
- .RS 0.5i
- .PD 1
- .TP 0.25i
- .B "Edit Macros"
- Here, the macros for F1 through F10 are defined. The bottom of the
- window shows a legend of character combinations that have special meaning.
- They allow you to enter special control characters with plain text by
- prefixing them with a '^', in which '^^' means '^' itself. You can
- send a 1 second delay with the '^~' code. This is useful when you are
- trying to login after ftp'ing or telnet'ing somewhere.
- You can also include your current username and password from the phone
- directory in the macros with '\u' and '\p', respectively. If you need
- the backslash character in the macro, write it doubled as '\\'.
- To edit a macro, press the number (or letter for F10) and you will be
- moved to the end of the macro. When editing the line, you may use the
- left & right arrows, Home & End keys, Delete & BackSpace, and ESC and
- RETURN. ESC cancels any changes made while ENTER accepts the changes.
- .PD 1
- .TP 0.25i
- .B "Character conversion"
- Here you can edit the character conversion table. If you are not an
- American, you know that in many languages there are characters that are
- not included in the ASCII character set, and in the old times they may
- have replaced some less important characters in ASCII and now they are
- often represented with character codes above 127. AND there are various
- different ways to represent them. This is where you may edit conversion
- tables for systems that use a character set different from the one on your
- computer.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B A - Load table
- You probably guessed it. This command loads a table from the disk.
- You are asked a file name for the table.
- Predefined tables .mciso, .mcpc8 and .mcsf7 should be included with the
- program. Table .mciso does no conversion, .mcpc8 is to be used for
- connections with systems that use the 8-bit pc character set, and .mcsf7
- is for compatibility with the systems that uses the good old 7-bit coding
- to replace the characters {|}[]\ with the diacritical characters used in
- Finnish and Swedish.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B B - Save table
- This one saves the active table on the filename you specify.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B C - edit char
- This is where you can make your own modifications to the existing table.
- First you are asked the character value (in decimal) whose conversion you
- want to change. Next you'll say which character you want to see on your
- screen when that character comes from the outside world. And then you'll
- be asked what you want to be sent out when you enter that character from
- your keyboard.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B D - next screen
- .TP 0.5i
- .B E - prev screen
- Yeah, you probably noticed that this screen shows you what kind of
- conversions are active. The screen just is (usually) too small to show
- the whole table at once in an easy-to-understand format. This is how you can
- scroll the table left and right.
- .TP 0.5i
- .B F - convert capture
- Toggles whether or not the character conversion table is used when
- writing the capture file.
- .RE
- .RE
- .PD 1
- .TP 0.25i
- .B "Save setup as dfl"
- Save the parameters as the default for the next time the program is
- started. Instead of dfl, any other parameter name may appear, depending
- on which one was used when the program was started.
- .TP 0.25i
- .B "Save setup as.."
- Save the parameters under a special name. Whenever Minicom is started
- with this name as an argument, it will use these parameters. This
- option is of course priviliged to root.
- .TP 0.25i
- .B "Exit"
- Escape from this menu without saving. This can also be done with ESC.
- .TP 0.25i
- .B "Exit from minicom"
- Only root will see this menu entry, if he/she started minicom with the '-s'
- option. This way, it is possible to change the configuration without
- actually running minicom.
- .PD 1
- .SH "STATUS LINE"
- The status line has several indicators, that speak for themselves.
- The mysterious APP or NOR indicator probably needs explanation. The
- VT100 cursor keys can be in two modes: applications mode and cursor
- mode. This is controlled by an escape sequence. If you find that
- the cursor keys do not work in, say, vi when you're logged in using
- minicom then you can see with this indicator whether the cursor keys
- are in applications or cursor mode. You can toggle the two with the
- C-A I key. If the cursor keys then work, it's probably an error in
- the remote system's termcap initialization strings (is).
- .PD 1
- .SH "LOCALES"
- Minicom has now support for local languages. This means you can change most
- of the English messages and other strings to another language by setting
- the environment variable LANG. On June 1999 the supported languages
- are Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish, Japanese, French, Polish and Korean.
- Turkish is under construction.
- .PD 1
- .SH "SECURITY ISSUES"
- Since Minicom is run setuid root on some computers, you probably want to
- restrict access to it. This is possible by using a configuration file
- in the same directory as the default files, called "minicom.users".
- The syntax of this file is as following:
- .PP
- .RS 0.5i
- <username> <configuration> [configuration...]
- .RE
- .PP
- To allow user 'miquels' to use the default configuration, enter the
- following line into "minicom.users":
- .PP
- .RS 0.5i
- miquels dfl
- .RE
- .PP
- If you want users to be able to use more than the default
- configurations, just add the names of those configurations behind the
- user name. If no configuration is given behind the username, minicom
- assumes that the user has access to all configurations.
- .PD 1
- .SH MISC
- If minicom is hung, kill it with SIGTERM . (This means kill -15, or
- since sigterm is default, just plain "kill <minicompid>". This will
- cause a graceful exit of minicom, doing resets and everything.
- You may kill minicom from a script with the command "! killall -9 minicom"
- without hanging up the line. Without the -9 parameter, minicom first
- hangs up before exiting.
- .PP
- Since a lot of escape sequences begin with ESC (Arrow up is ESC [ A),
- Minicom does not know if the escape character it gets is you pressing
- the escape key, or part of a sequence.
- .PP
- An old version of Minicom, V1.2, solved this in a rather crude way:
- to get the escape key, you had to press it
- .IR twice .
- .PP
- As of release 1.3 this has bettered a little: now a 1-second timeout
- is builtin, like in vi. For systems that have the select() system call
- the timeout is 0.5 seconds. And... surprise: a special Linux-dependant
- .BR hack " :-) was added. Now, minicom can separate the escape key and"
- escape-sequences. To see how dirty this was done, look into wkeys.c.
- But it works like a charm!
- .SH FILES
- Minicom keeps it's configuration files in one directory, usually
- /var/lib/minicom, /usr/local/etc or /etc. To find out what default
- directory minicom has compiled in, issue the command fIminicom -hfP.
- You'll probably also find the demo files for fBrunscriptfP(1),
- and the examples of character conversion tables either there or
- in the subdirectories of /usr/doc/minicom*. The conversion tables are
- named something like mc.* in that directory, but you probably want to
- copy the ones you need in your home directory as something beginning
- with a dot.
- .sp 1
- .nf
- minicom.users
- minirc.*
- $HOME/.minirc.*
- $HOME/.dialdir
- $HOME/minicom.log
- /usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/minicom.mo
- .fi
- .SH VERSION
- Minicom is now up to version 1.83.
- .SH AUTHORS
- The original author of minicom is Miquel van Smoorenburg (miquels@cistron.nl).
- He wrote versions up to 1.75.
- .br
- Jukka Lahtinen (walker@clinet.fi, walker@megabaud.fi) has been responsible
- for new versions since 1.78, helped by some other people, including:
- .br
- filipg@paranoia.com wrote the History buffer searching to 1.79.
- .br
- Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo (acme@conectiva.com.br) did the internationalization
- and the Brasilian Portuguese translations.
- .br
- Jim Seymour (jseymour@jimsun.LinxNet.com) wrote the multiple modem support
- and the filename selection window used since 1.80.
- .br
- Tomohiro Kubota (kubota@debian.or.jp) wrote the Japanese translations
- and the citation facility, and did some fixes.
- .br
- Gael Queri (gqueri@mail.dotcom.fr) wrote the French translations.
- .br
- Arkadiusz Miskiewicz (misiek@debian.eu.org) wrote the Polish translations.
- .br
- Kim soyoung (nexti@chollian.net) wrote the Korean translations.
- .PP
- Most of this man page is copied, with corrections, from the original minicom
- README, but some pieces and the corrections are by Michael K. Johnson
- (johnsonm@stolaf.edu).
- .PP
- Jukka Lahtinen (walker@clinet.fi) has added some information of the changes
- made after version 1.75.