minicom

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MINICOM(1)							   MINICOM(1)



NAME
       minicom - friendly serial communication program

SYNOPSIS
       minicom [-somMlwz8] [-c on|off] [-S script] [-d entry]
	       [-a  on|off]  [-t  term] [-p pty] [-C capturefile] [configura-
	       tion]

DESCRIPTION
       minicom is a communication program which somewhat resembles the share-
       ware  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 lan-
       guage interpreter, capture to file,  multiple  users  with  individual
       configurations, and more.

COMMAND-LINE
       -s   Setup.   Root  edits  the system-wide defaults in /etc/minirc.dfl
	    with this option.  When it is used, minicom does 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.

       -o   Do not initialize. Minicom will  skip  the	initialization	code.
	    This  option  is handy if you quitted from minicom without reset-
	    ting, and then want to restart a session. It is potentially	 dan-
	    gerous  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.

       -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	 key-
	    board 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.

       -M   Same  as  -m,  but assumes that your Meta key sets the 8th bit of
	    the character high (sends 128 + character code).

       -z   Use terminal status line. This only works on terminals that	 sup-
	    port  it  and that have the relevant information in their termcap
	    or terminfo database entry.

       -l   Literal 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).

       -w   Turns linewrap on at startup by default.

       -a   Attribute usage. Some terminals, notably televideo’s, have a rot-
	    ten	 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.

       -t   Terminal 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.

       -c   Color  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.

       -S   script.   Run  the named script at startup. So far, passing user-
	    name 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.

       -d   Dial 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.

       -p   Pseudo 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],
	    (/dev/)pts[p-z/][0-f]   or	(/dev/)pty[p-z/][0-f].	For  example,
	    /dev/ttyp1, pts/0 or /dev/ptyp2.

       -C   filename.  Open capture file at startup.

       -8   8bit characters pass through without any modification.  ’Continu-
	    ous’  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.)

	    When  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

		 MINICOM=’-m -c on’
		 export MINICOM

	    or	the  equivalent,  and start minicom, minicom will assume that
	    your terminal has a Meta or <ALT> key  and	that  color  is	 sup-
	    ported.   If  you  then log in from a terminal without color sup-
	    port, and you have set  MINICOM  in	 your  startup	(.profile  or
	    equivalent) file, and don’t want to re-set your environment vari-
	    able, you can type ’minicom -c off’ and run without color support
	    for that session.

       configuration
	    The 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.configuration".  So it is possible to	 cre-
	    ate	 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’.

USE
       Minicom is window 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.

       For every menu the next keys can be used:
	UP     arrow-up or ’k’
	DOWN   arrow-down or ’j’
	LEFT   arrow-left or ’h’
	RIGHT  arrow-right or ’l’
	CHOOSE Enter
	CANCEL ESCape.

       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 spe-
       cial status line that will be used if the termcap information is	 com-
       plete and the -k flag has been given.

       Possible commands are listed next, in alphabetical order.
       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.
       A    Toggle  ’Add  Linefeed’  on/off. If it is on, a linefeed is added
	    before every carriage return displayed on the screen.
       B    Gives you a scroll back buffer. You can scroll up  with  u,	 down
	    with  d,  a	 page  up with b, a page down with f, and if you have
	    them the arrow and page up/page down keys can also be  used.  You
	    can	 search	 for  text in the buffer with s (case-sensitive) or S
	    (case-insensitive). N  will	 find  the  next  occurrence  of  the
	    string.   c	 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.
       C    Clears the screen.
       D    Dial a number, or go to the dialing directory.
       E    Toggle local echo on and off (if your version of minicom supports
	    it).
       F    A break signal is sent to the modem.
       G    Run script (Go). Runs a login script.
       H    Hangup.
       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).
       J    Jump to a shell. On return, the whole screen will be redrawn.
       K    Clears the screen,	runs  kermit  and  redraws  the	 screen	 upon
	    return.
       L    Turn  Capture  file	 on off. If turned on, all output sent to the
	    screen will be captured in the file too.
       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.
       O    Configure minicom. Puts you in the configuration menu.
       P    Communication Parameters. Allows you to change the bps rate, par-
	    ity and number of bits.
       Q    Exit  minicom  without resetting the modem. If macros changed and
	    were not saved, you will have a chance to do so.
       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.
       S    Send files. Choose the protocol like you do with the receive com-
	    mand. 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.
       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.
       W    Toggle linewrap on/off.
       X    Exit  minicom, reset modem. If macros changed and were not saved,
	    you will have a chance to do so.
       Z    Pop up the help screen.

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	tag  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.

       The "edit" menu speaks for itself, but I will discuss it briefly here.
       A - Name	 The name for this entry
       B - Number
		 and its telephone number.
       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 Modem and dialing menu.
       D - Local echo
		 can be on or off for this system (if your version of minicom
		 supports it).
       E - Script
		 The  script that must be executed after a succesfull connec-
		 tion is made (see the manual for runscript)
       F - Username
		 The username that is passed to the runscript program.	It is
		 passed in the environment string "$LOGIN".
       G - Password
		 The password is passed as "$PASS".
       H - Terminal Emulation
		 Use ANSI or VT100 emulation.
       I - Backspace key sends
		 What code (Backspace or Delete) the backspace key sends.
       J - Linewrap
		 Can be on or off.
       K - Line settings
		 Bps  rate,  bits,  parity and number of stop bits to use for
		 this connection.  You can choose current for the  speed,  so
		 that it will use whatever speed is being used at that moment
		 (useful if you have multiple modems).
       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.
       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.

       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.


CONFIGURATION
       By  pressing  C-A  O you will be thrown into the setup menu. Most set-
       tings there can be changed by everyone, but  some  are  restricted  to
       root  only. Those priviliged settings are marked with a star (*) here.

       Filenames and paths
	  This menu defines your default directories.
	  A - Download directory
	       where the downloaded files go to.
	  B - Upload directory
	       where the uploaded files are read from.
	  C - Script directory
	       Where you keep your login scripts.
	  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.
	       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.
	  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.
	  F - Logging options
	       Options to configure the logfile writing.

	       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.

	       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.

	       C - Log file transfers
		    Do you want log entries of receiving and sending files.
	  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.

       File Transfer Protocols
	  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 win-
	  dow. 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 file-
	  name	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.

       Serial port setup
	  *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 or newer don’t have them.  Use /dev/ttyS<n>
	       instead.	 You may also have /dev/modem as  a  symlink  to  the
	       real device.
	       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.)
	  *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.
	  *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.
	  *D - Callout program
	       And this to get into dialout mode.
	  E - Bps/Par/Bits
	       Default parameters at startup.

	  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!

       Modem and Dialing
	  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:
	  M - Dial time
	       The  number  of seconds before minicom times out if no connec-
	       tion is established.
	  N - Delay before redial
	       Minicom will redial if no connection was made,  but  it	first
	       waits some time.
	  O - Number of tries
	       Maximum number of times that minicom attempts to dial.
	  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 sec-
	       onds how long DTR will be kept down.
	  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.
	  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.
	  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 connec-
	       tion  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.	 Oth-
	       erwise you will only see 0 as the line speed.
	  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.

	    Note  that	a special exception is made for this menu: every user
	    can change all parameters here, but some  of  them	will  not  be
	    saved.

       Screen and keyboard
	  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.
	  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...)
	  C - Status line is
	       Enabled	or disabled. Some slow terminals (for example, X-ter-
	       minals) 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.
	  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.
	  E - Foreground Color (menu)
	       indicates the foreground color to use for all  the  configura-
	       tion windows in minicom.
	  F - Background Color (menu)
	       indicates  the  background color to use for all the configura-
	       tion windows in minicom. Note that minicom will not allow  you
	       to set forground and background colors to the same value.
	  G - Foreground Color (term)
	       indicates  the foreground color to use in the terminal window.
	  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.
	  I - Foreground Color (stat)
	       indicates the foreground color to use in for the status bar.
	  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 inten-
	       sions, please see the option
	  K - History buffer size
	       The number of  lines  to	 keep  in  the	history	 buffer	 (for
	       backscrolling).
	  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	 mes-
	       sage  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 prob-
	       lem  :-) If the file does not exist, the filename is accepted.
	  M - Edit Macros
	       opens up a new window which allows you to edit the F1  through
	       F10 macros.
	  N - Macros enabled
	       - Yes or No. If macros are disabled, the F1-F10 keys will just
	       send the VT100/VT220 function key escape sequences.
	  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.

	       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	 con-
		 trol  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’,  respec-
		 tively.  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.

	       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 impor-
		 tant  characters in ASCII and now they are often represented
		 with character codes above 127. AND there are	various	 dif-
		 ferent	 ways  to  represent them. This is where you may edit
		 conversion tables for systems that use a character set	 dif-
		 ferent from the one on your computer.

	       A - Load table
		    You	 probably guessed it. This command loads a table from
		    the disk.  You are asked a file name for the table.	 Pre-
		    defined  tables  .mciso,  .mcpc8  and  .mcsf7  should  be
		    included with the program. Table .mciso does  no  conver-
		    sion,  .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.

	       B - Save table
		    This one saves the active table on the filename you spec-
		    ify.

	       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.

	       D - next screen

	       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.

	       F - convert capture
		    Toggles whether or not the character conversion table  is
		    used when writing the capture file.

       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.

       Save setup as..
	  Save	the  parameters	 under	a  special  name. Whenever Minicom is
	  started with this name as an argument, it will  use  these  parame-
	  ters. This option is of course priviliged to root.

       Exit
	  Escape  from	this menu without saving.  This can also be done with
	  ESC.

       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 configura-
	  tion without actually running minicom.

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	mini-
       com  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).

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 September 2001 the supported
       languages are Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish, Japanese, French, Polish,
       Czech, Russian and Spanish.  Turkish is under construction.

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  "mini-
       com.users".  The syntax of this file is as following:

	    <username> <configuration> [configuration...]

       To  allow  user	’miquels’ to use the default configuration, enter the
       following line into "minicom.users":

	    miquels dfl

       If you want users to be able to use more than the  default  configura-
       tions,  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.

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.

       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.

       An old version of Minicom, V1.2, solved this in a rather crude way: to
       get the escape key, you had to press it twice.

       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
       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!

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	 minicom  -h.
       You’ll  probably	 also  find  the demo files for runscript(1), and the
       examples of character conversion tables either there or in the  subdi-
       rectories  of /usr/doc/minicom*. The conversion tables are named some-
       thing 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.

       minicom.users
       minirc.*
       $HOME/.minirc.*
       $HOME/.dialdir
       $HOME/minicom.log
       /usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/minicom.mo

VERSION
       Minicom is now up to version 2.00.0.

AUTHORS
       The  original  author   of   minicom   is   Miquel   van	  Smoorenburg
       (miquels@cistron.nl).  He wrote versions up to 1.75.
       Jukka Lahtinen (walker@clinet.fi, walker@megabaud.fi) has been respon-
       sible for new versions  since  1.78,  helped  by	 some  other  people,
       including:
       filipg@paranoia.com wrote the History buffer searching to 1.79.
       Arnaldo	Carvalho de Melo (acme@conectiva.com.br) did the internation-
       alization and the Brasilian Portuguese translations.
       Jim Seymour (jseymour@jimsun.LinxNet.com)  wrote	 the  multiple	modem
       support and the filename selection window used since 1.80.
       Tomohiro	 Kubota (kubota@debian.or.jp) wrote the Japanese translations
       and the citation facility, and did some fixes.
       Gael Queri (gqueri@mail.dotcom.fr) wrote the French translations.
       Arkadiusz Miskiewicz (misiek@pld.org.pl)	 wrote	the  Polish  transla-
       tions.
       Kim Soyoung (nexti@chollian.net) wrote the Korean translations.

       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.

       Jukka  Lahtinen	(walker@clinet.fi)  has added some information of the
       changes made after version 1.75.



User’s Manual		 $Date: 2001/09/30 13:10:34 $		   MINICOM(1)