Reach a router, a switch or an embedded board through a USB-to-serial adapter, without leaving SSHive. Baud rate, data bits, parity, stop bits and flow control are all adjustable, with a BREAK signal and session logging.
screen /dev/cu.usbserial-XXXX 9600: a device path to find by hand, a speed passed as an argument, and a key sequence to look up whenever you need a BREAK or want to leave.
SSHive opens the console in a tab of the same window as your SSH sessions. Choose Serial console in the new connection dialog and the adapters plugged into your Mac are listed by name, so you pick usbserial-14210 instead of guessing a path; the Bluetooth port every Mac has is marked as a system port and listed last. Data bits, parity, stop bits and flow control are menus, and the speed goes in a field that suggests the common rates. The defaults are 9600 baud and 8-N-1, the setting most Cisco and Juniper consoles expect; MikroTik RouterBOARDs ship set to 115200 baud instead, one of the suggested speeds. SSHive remembers what you used last, and the tab shows the port and the speed, which helps when three consoles are open and one of them is the firewall.
The suggestions run from 9600 to 921600 baud, and any other rate can be typed in for equipment that uses an unusual one. Flow control can be none, RTS/CTS or XON/XOFF. A BREAK button sits in the toolbar, because many routers and switches wait for exactly that signal during boot to drop into ROMMON or password recovery.
The console is built for the usual accidents. At the wrong speed you see noise instead of a frozen window, a long configuration pasted in one go does not lock up the app, and pulling the adapter out closes the session and frees the port for the next one.Plugged-in adapters listed by name, with a Refresh button, instead of a /dev/cu.* path to find
Common speeds from 9600 to 921600 baud suggested and any other typed in, with data bits, parity, stop bits and RTS/CTS or XON/XOFF flow control
A BREAK button in the toolbar, for ROMMON and password-recovery prompts
Port and speed shown in the tab, and your last settings remembered
A bad VLAN change, a mistyped ACL, a firmware upgrade after which the device never came back. The console port does not depend on the network configuration, which is exactly why it exists. Send a BREAK during boot to reach ROMMON or the password-recovery prompt, then paste the corrected configuration in one go.
A switch fresh out of its box has no IP address and no SSH server: everything up to the first ip address line happens over the console. SSHive keeps the speed and framing you used last, so the next unit of the same model is plugged in and open in two clicks.
A Raspberry Pi that never finishes booting, an ESP32 printing to its UART, a board whose bootloader only talks on the serial header. The console shows the boot messages that never reach a log file, which is often the difference between a diagnosis and a reflash.
screen works, and it does more than people expect: Ctrl-A then Ctrl-B sends a BREAK, and -L logs to a file. What it does not do is find the device for you, show which port and speed a window is using, or remember your settings, so every option is a flag or a key sequence to look up. If you open a console once a year, screen is enough. If you open one every week, a port list and a BREAK button save you that lookup each time./dev/cu.* device the system creates for it rather than talking to the chip itself. Current versions of macOS include drivers for the common FTDI, Prolific, Silicon Labs and WCH (CH340) chips, and for USB CDC devices. If an adapter is plugged in and still missing from the list after Refresh, macOS has not recognised it, and the maker's driver is the next thing to try.RFC 854 terminal for legacy equipment
GPU-accelerated terminal
Reusable command library