Documentation/isdn/README.sc

   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.
 281