S-Series USB & Serial Port Mapping and Usage

FAQ_User — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 23:12:00 GMT

Article ID: 12453

Products
S-Series
S1, S3, S4, S6, S8

Goals
What are the locations and purpose of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports?
What are the locations and purpose of the Serial COM ports?

Solution
There are up to three USB ports, alternating with RJ45 COM ports, located along the top front of the chassis. As suggested by the applied labels, these map left-to-right to horizontal module slots numbered bottom-to-top.

The USB ports are used for file transfer of firmware image files and configuration files, between an external flash drive and the mapped module (12452). These ports support both USB 2.0 high speed and USB 1.0 low speed devices.
The COM ports are used for serial management of the integrated S-Series system.

On the S1, there is a USB port and COM port for one slot, mapping to slot 1.
On the S3, there is a USB port and COM port for every slot, respectively mapping to slots 1, 2, and 3.
On the S4, there is a USB port and COM port for every (red-marked) fabric slot, respectively mapping to slots 2 and 3.
On the S6, there is a USB port and COM port for every (red-marked) fabric slot, respectively mapping to slots 4, 5, and 6.
On the S8, there is a USB port and COM port for every (red-marked) fabric slot, respectively mapping to slots 4, 5, and 6 (12539).

A green-lit status LED under a chassis-based USB port indicates the presence of an operational mapped slot module, and thus the ability to use that USB port and/or its adjacent corresponding COM port.

The Micro USB port on each slot module is used for serial management of the integrated S-Series system. These ports support USB 1.0 low speed devices only. A capability offered here that is not available on the chassis-based COM ports is an ability to view and capture the module's boot sequence and/or serially manage a module that for whatever reason has not joined the integrated system.

When the system is fully operational with all modules joined, any chassis-based COM port (with an installed mapped slot module) or any module-based Micro USB port may be used to serially manage the system. Once a serial management session has been started using one such port, all other such ports are made non-operational for the duration of the session.

For COM port use, a RJ45 adapter kit (part# 9372065), including a "PC Adapter", is bundled with any S-Series chassis (i.e. S1-CHASSIS, S3-CHASSIS, S3-CHASSIS-POE4, S4-CHASSIS, S4-CHASSIS-POE4, S6-CHASSIS, S6-CHASSIS-POE4, S8-CHASSIS, S8-CHASSIS-POE4, S8-CHASSIS-POE8) purchase. For the serial procedure, see 5130.

For Micro USB use, a 6-foot USB-A TO Micro USB-B adapter cable (part# 9372224-6) is also bundled with any S-Series chassis purchase. Successfully connecting to serial management requires downloading and installing to your PC a third-party driver - the VCP Driver Kit - located at
https://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx.

See also: 11923 and 12034.
Note: The S-Series Standalone (SSA) has a RJ45 COM port and a Micro USB port, used as described above.

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S-Series USB & Serial Port Mapping and Usage