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Linux Quicknet-Drivers-Howto

Quicknet Technologies, Inc. (www.quicknet.net)

Version 0.3.4  December 18, 1999

1.0  Introduction

This document describes the first GPL release version of the Linux

driver for the Quicknet Internet PhoneJACK and Internet LineJACK

cards.  More information about these cards is available at

www.quicknet.net.  The driver version discussed in this document is

0.3.4.

These cards offer nice telco style interfaces to use your standard

telephone/key system/PBX as the user interface for VoIP applications.

The Internet LineJACK also offers PSTN connectivity for a single line

Internet to PSTN gateway.  Of course, you can add more than one card

to a system to obtain multi-line functionality.  At this time, the

driver supports the POTS port on both the Internet PhoneJACK and the

Internet LineJACK, but the PSTN port on the latter card is not yet

supported.

This document, and the drivers for the cards, are intended for a

limited audience that includes technically capable programmers who

would like to experiment with Quicknet cards.  The drivers are

considered in ALPHA status and are not yet considered stable enough

for general, widespread use in an unlimited audience.

That's worth saying again:

THE LINUX DRIVERS FOR QUICKNET CARDS ARE PRESENTLY IN A ALPHA STATE

AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS READY FOR NORMAL WIDESPREAD USE.

They are released early in the spirit of Internet development and to

make this technology available to innovators who would benefit from

early exposure.

When we promote the device driver to "beta" level it will be

considered ready for non-programmer, non-technical users.  Until then,

please be aware that these drivers may not be stable and may affect

the performance of your system.

1.1 Latest Additions/Improvements

The 0.3.4 version of the driver is the first GPL release.  Several

features had to be removed from the prior binary only module, mostly

for reasons of Intellectual Property rights.  We can't release

information that is not ours - so certain aspects of the driver had to

be removed to protect the rights of others.

Specifically, very old Internet PhoneJACK cards have non-standard

G.723.1 codecs (due to the early nature of the DSPs in those days).

The auto-conversion code to bring those cards into compliance with

todays standards is available as a binary only module to those people

needing it.  If you bought your card after 1997 or so, you are OK -

it's only the very old cards that are affected.

Also, the code to download G.728/G.729/G.729a codecs to the DSP is

available as a binary only module as well.  This IP is not ours to

release.

Hooks are built into the GPL driver to allow it to work with other

companion modules that are completely separate from this module.

1.2 Copyright, Trademarks, Disclaimer, & Credits

Copyright

Copyright (c) 1999 Quicknet Technologies, Inc.  Permission is granted

to freely copy and distribute this document provided you preserve it

in its original form. For corrections and minor changes contact the

maintainer at linux@quicknet.net.

Trademarks

Internet PhoneJACK and Internet LineJACK are registered trademarks of

Quicknet Technologies, Inc.

Disclaimer

Much of the info in this HOWTO is early information released by

Quicknet Technologies, Inc. for the express purpose of allowing early

testing and use of the Linux drivers developed for their products.

While every attempt has been made to be thorough, complete and

accurate, the information contained here may be unreliable and there

are likely a number of errors in this document. Please let the

maintainer know about them. Since this is free documentation, it

should be obvious that neither I nor previous authors can be held

legally responsible for any errors.

Credits

This HOWTO was written by:

        Greg Herlein 

        Ed Okerson 

1.3  Future Plans: You Can Help

Please let the maintainer know of any errors in facts, opinions,

logic, spelling, grammar, clarity, links, etc.  But first, if the date

is over a month old, check to see that you have the latest

version. Please send any info that you think belongs in this document.

You can also contribute code and/or bug-fixes for the sample

applications.

1.4  Where to get things

You can download the latest versions of the driver from:

http://www.quicknet.net/develop.htm

You can download the latest version of this document from:

http://www.quicknet.net/develop.htm

1.5  Mailing List

Quicknet operates a mailing list to provide a public forum on using

these drivers.

To subscribe to the linux-sdk mailing list, send an email to:

   majordomo@linux.quicknet.net

In the body of the email, type:

   subscribe linux-sdk 

Please delete any signature block that you would normally add to the

bottom of your email - it tends to confuse majordomo.

To send mail to the list, address your mail to

   linux-sdk@linux.quicknet.net

Your message will go out to everyone on the list.

To unsubscribe to the linux-sdk mailing list, send an email to:

   majordomo@linux.quicknet.net

In the body of the email, type:

   unsubscribe linux-sdk 

2.0  Requirements

2.1  Quicknet Card(s)

You will need at least one Internet PhoneJACK or Internet LineJACK

cards.  These are ISA or PCI bus devices that use Plug-n-Play for

configuration, and use no IRQs.  The driver will support up to 16

cards in any one system, of any mix between the two types.

Note that you will need two cards to do any useful testing alone, since

you will need a card on both ends of the connection.  Of course, if

you are doing collaborative work, perhaps your friends or coworkers

have cards too.  If not, we'll gladly sell them some!

2.2  ISAPNP

Since the Quicknet cards are Plug-n-Play devices, you will need the

isapnp tools package to configure the cards, or you can use the isapnp

module to autoconfigure them.  The former package probably came with

your Linux distribution.  Documentation on this package is available

online at:

http://mailer.wiwi.uni-marburg.de/linux/LDP/HOWTO/Plug-and-Play-HOWTO.html

The isapnp autoconfiguration is available on the Quicknet website at:

    http://www.quicknet.net/develop.htm

though it may be in the kernel by the time you read this.

3.0  Card Configuration

If you did not get your drivers as part of the linux kernel, do the

following to install them:

   a.  untar the distribution file.  We use the following command:

        tar -xvzf ixj-0.x.x.tgz

This creates a subdirectory holding all the necessary files.  Go to that

subdirectory.

   b.  run the "ixj_dev_create" script to remove any stray device

files left in the /dev directory, and to create the new officially

designated device files.  Note that the old devices were called

/dev/ixj, and the new method uses /dev/phone.

   c.  type "make;make install" - this will compile and install the

module.

   d.  type "depmod -av" to rebuild all your kernel version dependencies.

   e.  if you are using the isapnp module to configure the cards

       automatically, then skip to step f.  Otherwise, ensure that you

       have run the isapnp configuration utility to properly configure

       the cards.

       e1. The Internet PhoneJACK has one configuration register that

           requires 16 IO ports.  The Internet LineJACK card has two

           configuration registers and isapnp reports that IO 0

           requires 16 IO ports and IO 1 requires 8.  The Quicknet

           driver assumes that these registers are configured to be

           contiguous, i.e. if IO 0 is set to 0x340 then IO 1 should

           be set to 0x350.

           Make sure that none of the cards overlap if you have

           multiple cards in the system.

           If you are new to the isapnp tools, you can jumpstart

           yourself by doing the following:

      e2.  go to the /etc directory and run pnpdump to get a blank

           isapnp.conf file.

                pnpdump > /etc/isapnp.conf

      e3.  edit the /etc/isapnp.conf file to set the IO warnings and

           the register IO addresses. The IO warnings means that you

           should find the line in the file that looks like this:

           (CONFLICT (IO FATAL)(IRQ FATAL)(DMA FATAL)(MEM FATAL)) # or WARNING

           and you should edit the line to look like this:

           (CONFLICT (IO WARNING)(IRQ FATAL)(DMA FATAL)(MEM FATAL)) #

           or WARNING

           The next step is to set the IO port addresses.  The issue

           here is that isapnp does not identify all of the ports out

           there.  Specifically any device that does not have a driver

           or module loaded by Linux will not be registered.  This

           includes older sound cards and network cards.  We have

           found that the IO port 0x300 is often used even though

           isapnp claims that no-one is using those ports.  We

           recommend that for a single card installation that port

           0x340 (and 0x350) be used.  The IO port line should change

           from this:

           (IO 0 (SIZE 16) (BASE 0x0300) (CHECK))

           to this:

           (IO 0 (SIZE 16) (BASE 0x0340) )

       e4.  if you have multiple Quicknet cards, make sure that you do

            not have any overlaps.  Be especially careful if you are

            mixing Internet PhoneJACK and Internet LineJACK cards in

            the same system.  In these cases we recommend moving the

            IO port addresses to the 0x400 block.  Please note that on

            a few machines the 0x400 series are used.  Feel free to

            experiment with other addresses.  Our cards have been

            proven to work using IO addresses of up to 0xFF0.

       e5.  the last step is to uncomment the activation line so the

            drivers will be associated with the port.  This means the

            line (immediately below) the IO line should go from this:

            # (ACT Y)

            to this:

            (ACT Y)

            Once you have finished editing the isapnp.conf file you

            must submit it into the pnp driverconfigure the cards.

            This is done using the following command:

            isapnp isapnp.conf

            If this works you should see a line that identifies the

            Quicknet device, the IO port(s) chosen, and a message

            "Enabled OK".

   f.  if you are loading the module by hand, use insmod.  An example

of this would look like this:

        insmod phonedev

        insmod ixj dspio=0x320,0x310 xio=0,0x330

Then verify the module loaded by running lsmod. If you are not using a

module that matches your kernel version, you may need to "force" the

load using the -f option in the insmod command.

        insmod phonedev

        insmod -f ixj dspio=0x320,0x310 xio=0,0x330

If you are using isapnp to autoconfigure your card, then you do NOT

need any of the above, though you need to use depmod to load the

driver, like this:

        depmod ixj

which will result in the needed drivers getting loaded automatically.

   g.  if you are planning on using kerneld to automatically load the

module for you, then you need to edit /etc/conf.modules and add the

following lines:

        options ixj dspio=0x340 xio=0x330 ixjdebug=0

If you do this, then when you execute an application that uses the

module kerneld will load the module for you.  Note that to do this,

you need to have your kernel set to support kerneld.  You can check

for this by looking at /usr/src/linux/.config and you should see this:

        # Loadable module support

        #

        CONFIG_KMOD=y

  h.  if you want non-root users to be able to read and write to the

ixj devices (this is a good idea!) you should do the following:

     - decide upon a group name to use and create that group if

       needed.  Add the user names to that group that you wish to

       have access to the device.  For example, we typically will

       create a group named "ixj" in /etc/group and add all users

       to that group that we want to run software that can use the

       ixjX devices.

     - change the permissions on the device files, like this:

       chgrp ixj /dev/ixj*

       chmod 660 /dev/ixj*

Once this is done, then non-root users should be able to use the

devices.  If you have enabled autoloading of modules, then the user

should be able to open the device and have the module loaded

automatically for them.

4.0 Driver Installation problems.

We have tested these drivers on the 2.2.9, 2.2.10, 2.2.12, and 2.2.13 kernels

and in all cases have eventually been able to get the drivers to load and

run.  We have found four types of problems that prevent this from happening.

The problems and solutions are:

  a. A step was missed in the installation.  Go back and use section 3

as a checklist.  Many people miss running the ixj_dev_create script and thus

never load the device names into the filesystem.

  b. The kernel is inconsistently linked.  We have found this problem in

the Out Of the Box installation of several distributions.  The symptoms

are that neither driver will load, and that the unknown symbols include "jiffy"

and "kmalloc".  The solution is to recompile both the kernel and the

modules.  The command string for the final compile looks like this:

    In the kernel directory:

    1.  cp .config /tmp

    2.  make mrproper

    3.  cp /tmp/.config .

    4.  make dep;make clean;make bzImage;make modules;make modules_install

This rebuilds both the kernel and all the modules and makes sure they all

have the same linkages.  This generally solves the problem once the new

kernel is installed and the system rebooted.

  c. The kernel has been patched, then unpatched.  This happens when

someone decides to use an earlier kernel after they load a later kernel.

The symptoms are proceeding through all three above steps and still not

being able to load the driver.  What has happened is that the generated

header files are out of sync with the kernel itself.  The solution is

to recompile (again) using "make mrproper".  This will remove and then

regenerate all the necessary header files.  Once this is done, then you

need to install and reboot the kernel.  We have not seen any problem

loading one of our drivers after this treatment.

5.0  Known Limitations

We cannot currently play "dial-tone" and listen for DTMF digits at the

same time using the ISA PhoneJACK.  This is a bug in the 8020 DSP chip

used on that product.  All other Quicknet products function normally

in this regard.  We have a work-around, but it's not done yet.  Until

then, if you want dial-tone, you can always play a recorded dial-tone

sound into the audio until you have gathered the DTMF digits.