dsc-it-100 interface installer code hack, in rust

This branch contains a program to brute force the installer code on a DSC-1575 control panel. It should work with little changes across the entire DSC powerseries control panel line that interfaces with the DSC-IT-100 RS-232 module.

Its mostly a hack utility, so the source needs to be edited to change the interface (default /dev/ttyUSB0) if needed. When run it simply starts sending the *8-CODE sequence at 0000 working its way to 9999. If during this process it detects the panel actually accept the code it will quit and display said code.

Building/Running

This should build/run on any POSIX like rust development environment with:

cargo build

then target/debug/rust_proj

It was developed on an opensuse machine with a rustc from rustup. It was mostly run on a fedora 30 based rpi3.

If there is a communication problem look at the serialport::open_with_settings() call, which specifies the serial port as /dev/ttyUSB0 and the baud rate is selected immediately above it. Those two settings may need to be adjusted if your dsc-it-100 is not at 9600bps, or its not connected to a RS-232->USB converter.

Background

This program was written because I wanted something somewhat lightweight to run on a rpi3 to interface to the DSC PowerSeries alarm control panels. These panels are probably the most common alarm control panels in the area I live in by a large margin. They are fairly inexpensive, fairly well documented, and they have been around with little changes for decades. So unlike the CADT model of product design the base four wire power/data interface protocol they use is dead simple and can be monitored with simple GPIO/resistor pins on pretty common microcontroller. My old house had a PC-1616 I installed, but when I moved to the new house a few years ago, it already had a hard wired system left over from when it was built twenty years ago. And like many of these panels it had an unknown installer code. I wanted to extend the system and reprogram it to send text messages via a computer interface I controlled.

Why rust? Because I thought this would be a short "real life" program for gaining some additional rust skills.