A serial device server is a networking device that transforms serial signals to ethernet compatible signals enabling locally connected serial devices with a USB, RS232, RS422, or RS485 serial interface to communicate over a local area network (LAN). These serial device servers, in effect, create virtual serial ports that emulate physical serial ports which are then used to connect the peripheral device to the network. Network access is given to the attached devices as if they were locally connected to the serial port. This functionality makes it easy to put electronic equipment on an ethernet network and allows them to be used remotely by network attached applications and machines.