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Welcome to Beta Release 2 of the combination ISDN driver for SpellCaster's

ISA ISDN adapters. Please note this release 2 includes support for the

DataCommute/BRI and TeleCommute/BRI adapters only and any other use is

guaranteed to fail. If you have a DataCommute/PRI installed in the test

computer, we recommend removing it as it will be detected but will not

be usable.  To see what we have done to Beta Release 2, see section 3.

Speaking of guarantees, THIS IS BETA SOFTWARE and as such contains

bugs and defects either known or unknown. Use this software at your own

risk. There is NO SUPPORT for this software. Some help may be available

through the web site or the mailing list but such support is totally at

our own option and without warrantee. If you choose to assume all and

total risk by using this driver, we encourage you to join the beta

mailing list.

To join the Linux beta mailing list, send a message to:

majordomo@spellcast.com with the words "subscribe linux-beta" as the only

contents of the message. Do not include a signature. If you choose to

remove yourself from this list at a later date, send another message to

the same address with the words "unsubscribe linux-beta" as it's only

contents.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

-----------------

        1. Introduction

         1.1 What is ISDN4Linux?

         1.2 What is different between this driver and previous drivers?

         1.3 How do I setup my system with the correct software to use

             this driver release?

        2. Basic Operations

         2.1 Unpacking and installing the driver

         2.2 Read the man pages!!!

         2.3 Installing the driver

         2.4 Removing the driver

         2.5 What to do if it doesn't load

         2.6 How to setup ISDN4Linux with the driver

        3. Beta Change Summaries and Miscellaneous Notes

1. Introduction

---------------

The revision 2 Linux driver for SpellCaster ISA ISDN adapters is built

upon ISDN4Linux available separately or as included in Linux 2.0 and later.

The driver will support a maximum of 4 adapters in any one system of any

type including DataCommute/BRI, DataCommute/PRI and TeleCommute/BRI for a

maximum of 92 channels for host. The driver is supplied as a module in

source form and needs to be complied before it can be used. It has been

tested on Linux 2.0.20.

1.1 What Is ISDN4Linux

ISDN4Linux is a driver and set of tools used to access and use ISDN devices

on a Linux platform in a common and standard way. It supports HDLC and PPP

protocols and offers channel bundling and MLPPP support. To use ISDN4Linux

you need to configure your kernel for ISDN support and get the ISDN4Linux

tool kit from our web site.

ISDN4Linux creates a channel pool from all of the available ISDN channels

and therefore can function across adapters. When an ISDN4Linux compliant

driver (such as ours) is loaded, all of the channels go into a pool and

are used on a first-come first-served basis. In addition, individual

channels can be specifically bound to particular interfaces.

1.2 What is different between this driver and previous drivers?

The revision 2 driver besides adopting the ISDN4Linux architecture has many

subtle and not so subtle functional differences from previous releases. These

include:

        - More efficient shared memory management combined with a simpler

          configuration. All adapters now use only 16Kbytes of shared RAM

          versus between 16K and 64K. New methods for using the shared RAM

          allow us to utilize all of the available RAM on the adapter through

          only one 16K page.

        - Better detection of available upper memory. The probing routines

          have been improved to better detect avaialble shared RAM pages and

          used pages are now locked.

        - Decreased loading time and a wider range of I/O ports probed.

          We have significantly reduced the amount of time it takes to load

          the driver and at the same time doubled the number of I/O ports

          probed increasing the likelyhood of finding an adapter.

        - We now support all ISA adapter models with a single driver instead

          of separate drivers for each model. The revision 2 driver supports

          the DataCommute/BRI, DataCommute/PRI and TeleCommute/BRI in any

          combination up to a maximum of four adapters per system.

        - On board PPP protocol support has been removed in favour of the

          sync-PPP support used in ISDN4Linux. This means more control of

          the protocol parameters, faster negotiation time and a more

          familiar interface.

1.3 How do I setup my system with the correct software to use

    this driver release?

Before you can compile, install and use the SpellCaster ISA ISDN driver, you

must ensure that the following software is installed, configuraed and running:

        - Linux kernel 2.0.20 or later with the required init and ps

          versions. Please see your distribution vendor for the correct

          utility packages. The latest kernel is available from

          ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/v2.0/

        - The latest modules package (modules-2.0.0.tar.gz) from

          ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/modules-2.0.0.tar.gz

        - The ISDN4Linux tools available from

          ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/isdn4linux/v2.0/isdn4k-utils-2.0.tar.gz

          This package may fail to compile for you so you can alternatively

          get a pre-compiled version from

          ftp://ftp.spellcast.com/pub/drivers/isdn4linux/isdn4k-bin-2.0.tar.gz

2. Basic Operations

-------------------

2.1 Unpacking and installing the driver

        1. As root, create a directory in a convienient place. We suggest

           /usr/src/spellcaster.

        2. Unpack the archive with :

                tar xzf sc-n.nn.tar.gz -C /usr/src/spellcaster

        3. Change directory to /usr/src/spellcaster

        4. Read the README and RELNOTES files.

        5. Run 'make' and if all goes well, run 'make install'.

2.2 Read the man pages!!!

Make sure you read the scctrl(8) and sc(4) manual pages before continuing

any further. Type 'man 8 scctrl' and 'man 4 sc'.

2.3 Installing the driver

To install the driver, type '/sbin/insmod sc' as root. sc(4) details options

you can specify but you shouldn't need to use any unless this doesn't work.

Make sure the driver loaded and detected all of the adapters by typing

'dmesg'.

The driver can be configured so that it is loaded upon startup.  To do this,

edit the file "/etc/modules/'uname -f'/'uname -v'" and insert the driver name

"sc" into this file.

2.4 Removing the driver

To remove the driver, delete any interfaces that may exist (see isdnctrl(8)

for more on this) and then type '/sbin/rmmod sc'.

2.5 What to do if it doesn't load

If, when you try to install the driver, you get a message mentioning

'register_isdn' then you do not have the ISDN4Linux system installed. Please

make sure that ISDN support is configured in the kernel.

If you get a message that says 'initialization of sc failed', then the

driver failed to detect an adapter or failed to find resources needed such

as a free IRQ line or shared memory segment. If you are sure there are free

resources available, use the insmod options detailed in sc(4) to override

the probing function.

Upon testing, the following problem was noted, the driver would load without

problems, but the board would not respond beyond that point.  When a check was

done with 'cat /proc/interrupts' the interrupt count for sc was 0.  In the event

of this problem, change the BIOS settings so that the interrupts in question are

reserved for ISA use only.

2.6 How to setup ISDN4Linux with the driver

There are two main configurations which you can use with the driver:

A)      Basic HDLC connection

B)      PPP connection

C)      MLPPP connection

It should be mentioned here that you may also use a tty connection if you desire.

The Documentation directory of the isdn4linux subsystem offers a good documentation

on this feature.

A) 10 steps to the establishment of a basic HDLC connection

-----------------------------------------------------------

- please open the isdn-hdlc file in the examples directory and follow along...

        This file is a script used to configure a BRI ISDN TA to establish a basic HDLC

        connection between its two channels.  There two network interfaces which are

        created and two routes added between the channels.

        i)   using the isdnctrl utitity, add an interface with "addif" and name it "isdn0"

        ii)  add the outgoing and inbound telephone numbers

        iii) set the Layer 2 protocol to hdlc

        iv)  set the eaz of the interface to be the phone number of that specific channel

        v)   to turn the callback features off, set the callback to "off" and

             the callback delay (cbdelay) to 0.

        vi)  the hangup timeout can be set to a specified number of seconds

        vii) the hangup upon incomming call can be set on or off

        viii) use the ifconfig command to bring-up the network interface with a specific

             IP address and point to point address

        viv) add a route to the IP address through the isdn0 interface

        x)   a ping should result in the establishment of the connection

B) Establishment of a PPP connection

------------------------------------

- please open the isdn-ppp file in the examples directory and follow along...

        This file is a script used to configure a BRI ISDN TA to establish a PPP connection

        between the two channels.  The file is almost identical to the HDLC connection

        example except that the packet ecapsulation type has to be set.

        use the same procedure as in the HDLC connection from steps i) to iii) then,

        after the Layer 2 protocol is set, set the encapsulation  "encap" to syncppp.

        With this done, the rest of the steps, iv) to x) can be followed from above.

        Then, the ipppd (ippp daemon) must be setup:

        xi)   use the ipppd function found in /sbin/ipppd to set the following:

        xii)  take out (minus) VJ compression and bsd compression

        xiii) set the mru size to 2000

        xiv)  link the two /dev interfaces to the daemon

NOTE:  A "*" in the inbound telephone number specifies that a call can be accepted

       on any number.

C) Establishment of a MLPPP connection

--------------------------------------

- please open the isdn-mppp file in the examples directory and follow along...

        This file is a script used to configure a BRI ISDN TA to accept a Multi Link PPP

        connection.

        i)   using the isdnctrl utitity, add an interface with "addif" and name it "ippp0"

        ii)  add the inbound telephone number

        iii) set the Layer 2 protocol to hdlc and the Layer 3 protocol to trans (transparent)

        iv)  set the packet encapsulation to syncppp

        v)   set the eaz of the interface to be the phone number of that specific channel

        vi)   to turn the callback features off, set the callback to "off" and

             the callback delay (cbdelay) to 0.

        vi)  the hangup timeout can be set to a specified number of seconds

        vii) the hangup upon incomming call can be set on or off

        viii) add a slave interface and name it "ippp32" for example

        viv)  set the similar parameters for the ippp32 interface

        x)    use the ifconfig command to bring-up the ippp0 interface with a specific

             IP address and point to point address

        xi)  add a route to the IP address through the ippp0 interface

        xii) use the ipppd function found in /sbin/ipppd to set the following:

        xiii) take out (minus) bsd compression

        xiv) set the mru size to 2000

        xv)  add (+) the multi-link function "+mp"

        xv)  link the two /dev interfaces to the daemon

NOTE:  To use the MLPPP connection to dial OUT to a MLPPP connection, change the

       inbound telephone numbers to the outgoing telephone numbers of the MLPPP

       host.

3. Beta Change Summaries and Miscellaneous Notes

------------------------------------------------

When using the "scctrl" utility to upload firmware revisions on the board, please

note that the byte count displayed at the end of the operation may be different

than the total number of bytes in the "dcbfwn.nn.sr" file.  Please disregard the

displayed byte count.

It was noted that in Beta Release 1, the module would fail to load and result in a

segmentation fault when insmod"ed".  This problem was created when one of the

isdn4linux parameters, (isdn_ctrl, data field) was filled in.  In some cases, this

data field was NULL, and was left unchecked, so when it was referenced.. segv.

The bug has been fixed around line 63-68 of event.c.