Eterlogic Virtual Serial Ports Emulator
Eterlogic Virtual Serial Ports Emulator is also referenced as 'VSPE' in this documentation.
VSPE main window
- Goal: Create and manage virtual serial ports which can be opened by legacy or modern applications
- Goal: Share existing serial port with many applications on the same or on different computers (for example, read data from the same GPS receiver on the network)
- Goal: Build custom data flows (serial ports, TCP/UDP connections etc) with or without data post-processing
- Goal: Monitor data flows processed by VSPE
- Goal: Achieve all of the above by using simple user interface
- Goal: Support as many Windows operating systems as possible
- Goal: work without requiring internet connection
- Native support for x32 (x86), x64 (x86-64) and arm64 platforms
- Kernel mode device: Connector (virtual serial port)
- Kernel mode device: Pair (2 connected virtual serial ports)
- Kernel mode device: Splitter (virtual serial port connected to source serial port)
- Kernel mode device: Mapper (mapping existing serial port to new serial port, for legacy applications)
- User mode device: TcpServer (forward serial port to Tcp Server)
- User mode device: TcpClient (forward serial port to Tcp Client)
- User mode device: Serial Redirector (redirect data from one serial port to another)
- User mode device: UDP Manager (forward serial port to UDP server/client)
- User mode device: Bridge (connect 2 data sources with post-processing data). Data sources include:
- Serial port
- Tcp server/client
- Named pipe server/client
- Data processing (filtering, replacing etc) using built-in transformers
- VSPE API (C/C++ header and static library) for native language developers
- VSPE API COM interface
See
Known limitations and issues
Read about additional system requirements here:
https://eterlogic.com/Products.VSPE.html.
VSPE components
VSPE kernel driver is needed to create virtual serial ports devices.
When kernel driver is correctly installed, it is displayed as "Eterlogic Virtual Serial Bus" in Device Manager.
VSPE virtual ports are displayed as "Eterlogic Virtual Serial Port" devices under "Ports (COM & LPT)" in Device Manager.
All VSPE devices are automatically deleted on uninstall.
VSPE kernel components in Windows device manager
The service is managing all VSPE devices, communicating with kernel driver and automatically loading configuration on startup (if applicable).
VSPE service is registered as "Eterlogic Virtual Serial Ports emulator service" under "Local Service" account, with "Automatic" startup type.
This account has minimum privileges on the local computer and presents anonymous credentials on the network. If those limited privileges are not enough for your scenario (for example to access network resources), you can always manually configure service to run under different credentials.
The service is automatically deleted on uninstall.
VSPE Windows Service
VSPE application is communicating with VSPE service to manage VSPE devices.
VSPE devices
In VSPE application context, "device" is an entity created by user to achieve something. For example, Connector device is creating virtual serial port which can be opened by 2 applications to exchange data.
The image below shows:
- 3 kernel-mode devices: Connector COM1, Connector COM3 and Splitter COM2
- 2 user-mode devices: TcpServer and TcpClient
- All of these devices belong to the same data flow
VSPE application is storing settings in '%localappdata%\Eterlogic\VSPE' folder:
- VSPEmulator.log: Log file. Deleted on uninstall.
- vspe.ini: VSPE settings file.
VSPE service is storing settings in '%programdata%\Eterlogic\VSPE' folder:
- EterlogicVspeDeviceManagerService.log: Log file. Deleted on uninstall.
- vspe.license: License file.
- autostart.vspe: Autostart config file.
The devices below are implemented in kernel driver:
The devices below do not create any virtual serial ports, but can be combined with other devices to build custom data flows:
Thank you for using VSPE!
- See also:
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