Based on kernel version 4.3. Page generated on 2015-11-02 12:50 EST.
1 Welcome to Beta Release 2 of the combination ISDN driver for SpellCaster's 2 ISA ISDN adapters. Please note this release 2 includes support for the 3 DataCommute/BRI and TeleCommute/BRI adapters only and any other use is 4 guaranteed to fail. If you have a DataCommute/PRI installed in the test 5 computer, we recommend removing it as it will be detected but will not 6 be usable. To see what we have done to Beta Release 2, see section 3. 7 8 Speaking of guarantees, THIS IS BETA SOFTWARE and as such contains 9 bugs and defects either known or unknown. Use this software at your own 10 risk. There is NO SUPPORT for this software. Some help may be available 11 through the web site or the mailing list but such support is totally at 12 our own option and without warranty. If you choose to assume all and 13 total risk by using this driver, we encourage you to join the beta 14 mailing list. 15 16 To join the Linux beta mailing list, send a message to: 17 majordomo@spellcast.com with the words "subscribe linux-beta" as the only 18 contents of the message. Do not include a signature. If you choose to 19 remove yourself from this list at a later date, send another message to 20 the same address with the words "unsubscribe linux-beta" as its only 21 contents. 22 23 TABLE OF CONTENTS 24 ----------------- 25 1. Introduction 26 1.1 What is ISDN4Linux? 27 1.2 What is different between this driver and previous drivers? 28 1.3 How do I setup my system with the correct software to use 29 this driver release? 30 31 2. Basic Operations 32 2.1 Unpacking and installing the driver 33 2.2 Read the man pages!!! 34 2.3 Installing the driver 35 2.4 Removing the driver 36 2.5 What to do if it doesn't load 37 2.6 How to setup ISDN4Linux with the driver 38 39 3. Beta Change Summaries and Miscellaneous Notes 40 41 1. Introduction 42 --------------- 43 44 The revision 2 Linux driver for SpellCaster ISA ISDN adapters is built 45 upon ISDN4Linux available separately or as included in Linux 2.0 and later. 46 The driver will support a maximum of 4 adapters in any one system of any 47 type including DataCommute/BRI, DataCommute/PRI and TeleCommute/BRI for a 48 maximum of 92 channels for host. The driver is supplied as a module in 49 source form and needs to be complied before it can be used. It has been 50 tested on Linux 2.0.20. 51 52 1.1 What Is ISDN4Linux 53 54 ISDN4Linux is a driver and set of tools used to access and use ISDN devices 55 on a Linux platform in a common and standard way. It supports HDLC and PPP 56 protocols and offers channel bundling and MLPPP support. To use ISDN4Linux 57 you need to configure your kernel for ISDN support and get the ISDN4Linux 58 tool kit from our web site. 59 60 ISDN4Linux creates a channel pool from all of the available ISDN channels 61 and therefore can function across adapters. When an ISDN4Linux compliant 62 driver (such as ours) is loaded, all of the channels go into a pool and 63 are used on a first-come first-served basis. In addition, individual 64 channels can be specifically bound to particular interfaces. 65 66 1.2 What is different between this driver and previous drivers? 67 68 The revision 2 driver besides adopting the ISDN4Linux architecture has many 69 subtle and not so subtle functional differences from previous releases. These 70 include: 71 - More efficient shared memory management combined with a simpler 72 configuration. All adapters now use only 16Kbytes of shared RAM 73 versus between 16K and 64K. New methods for using the shared RAM 74 allow us to utilize all of the available RAM on the adapter through 75 only one 16K page. 76 - Better detection of available upper memory. The probing routines 77 have been improved to better detect available shared RAM pages and 78 used pages are now locked. 79 - Decreased loading time and a wider range of I/O ports probed. 80 We have significantly reduced the amount of time it takes to load 81 the driver and at the same time doubled the number of I/O ports 82 probed increasing the likelihood of finding an adapter. 83 - We now support all ISA adapter models with a single driver instead 84 of separate drivers for each model. The revision 2 driver supports 85 the DataCommute/BRI, DataCommute/PRI and TeleCommute/BRI in any 86 combination up to a maximum of four adapters per system. 87 - On board PPP protocol support has been removed in favour of the 88 sync-PPP support used in ISDN4Linux. This means more control of 89 the protocol parameters, faster negotiation time and a more 90 familiar interface. 91 92 1.3 How do I setup my system with the correct software to use 93 this driver release? 94 95 Before you can compile, install and use the SpellCaster ISA ISDN driver, you 96 must ensure that the following software is installed, configured and running: 97 98 - Linux kernel 2.0.20 or later with the required init and ps 99 versions. Please see your distribution vendor for the correct 100 utility packages. The latest kernel is available from 101 ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/v2.0/ 102 103 - The latest modules package (modules-2.0.0.tar.gz) from 104 ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/modules-2.0.0.tar.gz 105 106 - The ISDN4Linux tools available from 107 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/isdn4linux/v2.0/isdn4k-utils-2.0.tar.gz 108 This package may fail to compile for you so you can alternatively 109 get a pre-compiled version from 110 ftp://ftp.spellcast.com/pub/drivers/isdn4linux/isdn4k-bin-2.0.tar.gz 111 112 113 2. Basic Operations 114 ------------------- 115 116 2.1 Unpacking and installing the driver 117 118 1. As root, create a directory in a convenient place. We suggest 119 /usr/src/spellcaster. 120 121 2. Unpack the archive with : 122 tar xzf sc-n.nn.tar.gz -C /usr/src/spellcaster 123 124 3. Change directory to /usr/src/spellcaster 125 126 4. Read the README and RELNOTES files. 127 128 5. Run 'make' and if all goes well, run 'make install'. 129 130 2.2 Read the man pages!!! 131 132 Make sure you read the scctrl(8) and sc(4) manual pages before continuing 133 any further. Type 'man 8 scctrl' and 'man 4 sc'. 134 135 2.3 Installing the driver 136 137 To install the driver, type '/sbin/insmod sc' as root. sc(4) details options 138 you can specify but you shouldn't need to use any unless this doesn't work. 139 140 Make sure the driver loaded and detected all of the adapters by typing 141 'dmesg'. 142 143 The driver can be configured so that it is loaded upon startup. To do this, 144 edit the file "/etc/modules/'uname -f'/'uname -v'" and insert the driver name 145 "sc" into this file. 146 147 2.4 Removing the driver 148 149 To remove the driver, delete any interfaces that may exist (see isdnctrl(8) 150 for more on this) and then type '/sbin/rmmod sc'. 151 152 2.5 What to do if it doesn't load 153 154 If, when you try to install the driver, you get a message mentioning 155 'register_isdn' then you do not have the ISDN4Linux system installed. Please 156 make sure that ISDN support is configured in the kernel. 157 158 If you get a message that says 'initialization of sc failed', then the 159 driver failed to detect an adapter or failed to find resources needed such 160 as a free IRQ line or shared memory segment. If you are sure there are free 161 resources available, use the insmod options detailed in sc(4) to override 162 the probing function. 163 164 Upon testing, the following problem was noted, the driver would load without 165 problems, but the board would not respond beyond that point. When a check was 166 done with 'cat /proc/interrupts' the interrupt count for sc was 0. In the event 167 of this problem, change the BIOS settings so that the interrupts in question are 168 reserved for ISA use only. 169 170 171 2.6 How to setup ISDN4Linux with the driver 172 173 There are three main configurations which you can use with the driver: 174 175 A) Basic HDLC connection 176 B) PPP connection 177 C) MLPPP connection 178 179 It should be mentioned here that you may also use a tty connection if you 180 desire. The Documentation directory of the isdn4linux subsystem offers good 181 documentation on this feature. 182 183 A) 10 steps to the establishment of a basic HDLC connection 184 ----------------------------------------------------------- 185 186 - please open the isdn-hdlc file in the examples directory and follow along... 187 188 This file is a script used to configure a BRI ISDN TA to establish a 189 basic HDLC connection between its two channels. Two network 190 interfaces are created and two routes added between the channels. 191 192 i) using the isdnctrl utility, add an interface with "addif" and 193 name it "isdn0" 194 ii) add the outgoing and inbound telephone numbers 195 iii) set the Layer 2 protocol to hdlc 196 iv) set the eaz of the interface to be the phone number of that 197 specific channel 198 v) to turn the callback features off, set the callback to "off" and 199 the callback delay (cbdelay) to 0. 200 vi) the hangup timeout can be set to a specified number of seconds 201 vii) the hangup upon incoming call can be set on or off 202 viii) use the ifconfig command to bring up the network interface with 203 a specific IP address and point to point address 204 ix) add a route to the IP address through the isdn0 interface 205 x) a ping should result in the establishment of the connection 206 207 208 B) Establishment of a PPP connection 209 ------------------------------------ 210 211 - please open the isdn-ppp file in the examples directory and follow along... 212 213 This file is a script used to configure a BRI ISDN TA to establish a 214 PPP connection between the two channels. The file is almost 215 identical to the HDLC connection example except that the packet 216 encapsulation type has to be set. 217 218 use the same procedure as in the HDLC connection from steps i) to 219 iii) then, after the Layer 2 protocol is set, set the encapsulation 220 "encap" to syncppp. With this done, the rest of the steps, iv) to x) 221 can be followed from above. 222 223 Then, the ipppd (ippp daemon) must be setup: 224 225 xi) use the ipppd function found in /sbin/ipppd to set the following: 226 xii) take out (minus) VJ compression and bsd compression 227 xiii) set the mru size to 2000 228 xiv) link the two /dev interfaces to the daemon 229 230 NOTE: A "*" in the inbound telephone number specifies that a call can be 231 accepted on any number. 232 233 C) Establishment of a MLPPP connection 234 -------------------------------------- 235 236 - please open the isdn-mppp file in the examples directory and follow along... 237 238 This file is a script used to configure a BRI ISDN TA to accept a 239 Multi Link PPP connection. 240 241 i) using the isdnctrl utility, add an interface with "addif" and 242 name it "ippp0" 243 ii) add the inbound telephone number 244 iii) set the Layer 2 protocol to hdlc and the Layer 3 protocol to 245 trans (transparent) 246 iv) set the packet encapsulation to syncppp 247 v) set the eaz of the interface to be the phone number of that 248 specific channel 249 vi) to turn the callback features off, set the callback to "off" and 250 the callback delay (cbdelay) to 0. 251 vi) the hangup timeout can be set to a specified number of seconds 252 vii) the hangup upon incoming call can be set on or off 253 viii) add a slave interface and name it "ippp32" for example 254 ix) set the similar parameters for the ippp32 interface 255 x) use the ifconfig command to bring-up the ippp0 interface with a 256 specific IP address and point to point address 257 xi) add a route to the IP address through the ippp0 interface 258 xii) use the ipppd function found in /sbin/ipppd to set the following: 259 xiii) take out (minus) bsd compression 260 xiv) set the mru size to 2000 261 xv) add (+) the multi-link function "+mp" 262 xvi) link the two /dev interfaces to the daemon 263 264 NOTE: To use the MLPPP connection to dial OUT to a MLPPP connection, change 265 the inbound telephone numbers to the outgoing telephone numbers of the MLPPP 266 host. 267 268 269 3. Beta Change Summaries and Miscellaneous Notes 270 ------------------------------------------------ 271 When using the "scctrl" utility to upload firmware revisions on the board, 272 please note that the byte count displayed at the end of the operation may be 273 different from the total number of bytes in the "dcbfwn.nn.sr" file. Please 274 disregard the displayed byte count. 275 276 It was noted that in Beta Release 1, the module would fail to load and result 277 in a segmentation fault when 'insmod'ed. This problem was created when one of 278 the isdn4linux parameters, (isdn_ctrl, data field) was filled in. In some 279 cases, this data field was NULL, and was left unchecked, so when it was 280 referenced... segv. The bug has been fixed around line 63-68 of event.c.