262 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
262 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
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Stallion Multiport Serial Driver Readme
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---------------------------------------
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Version: 0.0.4 alpha
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Date: 06FEB96
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Author: Greg Ungerer (gerg@stallion.oz.au)
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1. INTRODUCTION
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This is a FreeBSD driver for some of the Stallion Technologies range of
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multiport serial boards. This driver is still very new, so it should be
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considered to be of very alpha quality.
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This driver has not been developed by Stallion Technologies. I developed it
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in my spare time in the hope that it would be useful. As such there is no
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warranty or support of any form.
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What this means is that this driver is not officially supported by Stallion
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Technologies, so don't ring their support if you can't get it working. They
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will probably not be able to help you. Instead email me if you have problems
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or bug reports and I will do what I can... (Sorry to sound so heavy handed,
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but I need to stress that this driver is not officially supported in any way.)
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This driver supports the EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 range of boards.
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All of these boards are not classical intelligent multiport boards, but are
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host based multiport boards that use high performance Cirrus Logic CL-CD1400
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RISC UART's (they have built in FIFO's, automatic flow control, and some
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other good stuff).
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The EasyIO range of cards comes in 3 forms, the EasyIO-4, EasyIO-8 and the
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EasyIO-8M. All of these are non-expandable, low cost, ISA, multiport boards
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with 4, 8 and 8 RS-232C ports respectively. Each EasyIO board requires 8
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bytes of IO address space and 1 interrupt. On an EISA system it is possible
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to share 1 interrupt between multiple boards. The EasyIO-4 has 10 pin RJ
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connectors, and the EasyIO-8 comes with a dongle cable that can be either
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10 pin RJ connectors or DB-25 connectors. The EasyIO-8M has 6 pin RJ
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connectors.
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The EasyConnection 8/32 family of boards is a relatively low cost modular
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range of multiport serial boards. The EasyConnection 8/32 boards can be
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configured to have from 8 to 32 serial ports by plugging in external serial
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port modules that contain from 8 to 16 ports each. There is a wide range of
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external modules available that offer: DB-25 connectors, RJ-45 connectors
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(both with RS-232 D and E compatible drivers), and also RS-422 ports. The
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EasyConnection 8/32 boards come in ISA and MCA bus versions. The board takes
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the form of a host adapter card, with an external connector cable that plugs
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into the external modules. The external modules just clip together to add
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ports (BTW they are not hot pluggable). Each EasyConnection 8/32 board
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requires 2 separate IO address ranges, one 2 bytes in size and a secondary
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region of 32 bytes. Each board also requires 1 interrupt, on EISA systems
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multiple boards can share 1 interrupt. The secondary IO range (the 32 byte
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range) can be shared between multiple boards on any bus type.
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So thats the hardware supported (sounds like a marketing spiel doesn't it!).
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I am working on drivers for other boards in the Stallion range, so look
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out for those some time soon...
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1.1 HOW TO GET BOARDS
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Stallion Technologies has offices all over the world, as well as many more
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distributors and resellers. To find out about local availability please
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contact the nearest Stallion office and they can give you all the information
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you need. Look in the "Offices" file in the driver package for a current list
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of Stallion Technologies offices.
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Another good source of information about the Stallion range of boards and
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local availability is on the Stallion Web page. Check it out at
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http://www.stallion.com.
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2. INSTALLATION
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This driver, as is, will work on a FreeBSD 2.1 system. It will run on
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a 2.0.5 system, or -current version systems by changing a define in the
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driver source.
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You will need to build a new kernel to use this driver. So the first thing
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you need is to have the full kernel source. Most people will have this
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(I hope!). The following assumes that the kernel source is in /usr/src/sys.
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The driver can support up to 8 boards, with any combination of EasyIO and
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EasyConnection 8/32 boards. So there is a theoretical maximum of 256 ports.
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(Off-course I have not tested a system with this many!)
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Instructions to install:
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1. Copy the driver source files into the kernel source tree.
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cp stallion.c /usr/src/sys/i386/isa
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cp scd1400.h /usr/src/sys/i386/ic
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Note: if you are NOT using FreeBSD 2.1.0 then you will need to edit the
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stallion.c file and change the VFREEBSD define to match your version.
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2. (Note: skip to next step if on a FreeBSD kernel later than 2.1.0)
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Add a character device switch table entry for the driver into the cdevsw
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table structure. This involves adding some code into the kernel conf.c
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file:
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cd /usr/src/sys/i386/i386
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vi conf.c
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- add the following lines (in 2.1 I put them at line 729):
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/* Stallion Multiport Serial Driver */
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#include "stl.h"
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#if NSTL > 0
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d_open_t stlopen;
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d_close_t stlclose;
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d_read_t stlread;
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d_write_t stlwrite;
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d_ioctl_t stlioctl;
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d_stop_t stlstop;
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d_ttycv_t stldevtotty;
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#define stlreset nxreset
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#define stlmmap nxmmap
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#define stlstrategy nxstrategy
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#else
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#define stlopen nxopen
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#define stlclose nxclose
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#define stlread nxread
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#define stlwrite nxwrite
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#define stlioctl nxioctl
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#define stlstop nxstop
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#define stlreset nxreset
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#define stlmmap nxmmap
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#define stlstrategy nxstrategy
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#define stldevtotty nxdevtotty
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#endif
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- and then inside the actual cdevsw structure definition, at the
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last entry add (this is now line 1384 in the 2.1 conf.c):
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{ stlopen, stlclose, stlread, stlwrite, /*72*/
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stlioctl, stlstop, stlreset, stldevtotty,/*stallion*/
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ttselect, stlmmap, stlstrategy },
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- the line above used major number 72, but this may be different
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on your system. Take note of what major number you are using.
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- save the file and exit vi.
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3. Add the driver source files to the kernel files list:
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cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
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vi files.i386
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- add the following definition line into the list (it is stored
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alphabetically, so insert it appropriately):
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i386/isa/stallion.c optional stl device-driver
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- save the file and exit vi.
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4. Add board probe entries into the kernel configuration file:
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cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
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cp GENERIC MYKERNEL
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- if you already have a kernel config that you use then you
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could just use that (instead of MYKERNEL)
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vi MYKERNEL
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- if only using ECH-PCI boards then you don't need to enter a
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configuration line, the kernel will automatically detect
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the board at boot up, so skip to step 5.
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- enter a line for each board that you want to use, eg:
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device stl0 at isa? port 0x2a0 tty irq 10 vector stlintr
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(I suggest you put them after the sio? entries)
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(Don't enter lines for ECH-PCI boards)
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- change the io address and irq in this line as required
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- save the file and exit
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5. Build a new kernel using this configuration.
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cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
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config MYKERNEL
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cd ../../compile/MYKERNEL
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make depend
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make all
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make install
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And there you have it! It is a little bit of effort to get it in there...
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So once you have a new kernel built, reboot to start it up. On startup the
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Stallion board probes will report on whether the boards were found or not.
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For each board found the driver will print out the type of board found,
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and how many panels and ports it has.
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If a board is not found by the driver but is actually in the system then the
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most likely problem is that the IO address is wrong. The easiest thing to do
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is change the DIP switches on the board to the desired address and reboot.
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On EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 boards the IRQ is software programmable,
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so if there is a conflict you may need to change the IRQ used for a board in
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the MYKERNEL configuration file and rebuild the kernel.
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Note that the secondary IO address of the EasyConnection 8/32 boards is hard
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wired into the stallion.c driver code. It is currently set to IO address
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0x280. If you need to use a different address then you will need to edit this
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file and change the variable named stl_ioshared.
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3. USING THE DRIVER
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Once the driver is installed you will need to setup some device nodes to
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access the serial ports. Use the supplied "mkdevnods" script to automatically
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create all required device entries for your boards. To make device nodes for
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more than 1 board then just supply the number of boards you are using as a
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command line parameter to mkdevnods and it will create nodes for that number
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of boards. By default it will create device nodes for 1 board only.
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Note that if the driver is not installed at character major number 72 then
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you will need to edit the mkdevnods script and modify the STL_SERIALMAJOR
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variable to the major number you are using.
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Device nodes created for the normal serial port devices are named /dev/ttyEX
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where X is the port number. (The second boards ports will start from ttyE32,
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the third boards from ttyE64, etc). It will also create a set of modem call
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out devices named cueX where again X is the port number.
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For the most part the Stallion driver tries to emulate the standard PC system
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com ports and the standard sio serial driver. The idea is that you should
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be able to use Stallion board ports and com ports inter-changeably without
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modifying anything but the device name. Anything that doesn't work like that
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should be considered a bug in this driver!
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Since this driver tries to emulate the standard serial ports as much as
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possible then most system utilities should work as they do for the standard
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com ports. Most importantly "stty" works as expected and "comcontrol" can be
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used just like for the serial ports.
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This driver should work with anything that works on standard com serial ports.
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Having said that, I have used it on at least the following types of "things"
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under FreeBSD:
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a) standard dumb terminals (using getty)
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b) modems (using cu, etc)
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c) ppp (through pppd, kernel ppp)
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4. NOTES
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Be aware that this driver is still very new, so there is sure to be some bugs
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in it. Please email me any feedback on bugs, problems, or even good
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experiences with this driver!
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I will probably also add LKM support some time soon.
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5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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This driver is loosely based on the code of the FreeBSD sio serial driver.
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A big thanks to Stallion Technologies for the use of their equipment.
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