Need help with serial card + baycom

Need help with serial card + baycom

[Fabio IZ4AFW]

Hi guys,
     I'm new to the list, and I need help to use a baycom modem with linux.

I used it before for a long time with linux, connected directly to the 
RS-232 ports on the mainboard, and I had no problems, neither configuring 
it, nor using it on the air.
Now I need using those ports for different tasks, so I decided to buy a PCI 
cards with 2 additional RS232 ports (and another LPT, but this is not 
interesting to the problem).
I bought a PCI cards made by SUNIX (model 4079T), based on the SUN1889 
chip, which features a 16C650 UART (FIFO with 32 bytes, base speed 921600 
bps), which linux seems to recognize (setserial can set the various 
parameters, even if actually it recognizes it as a 16550A UART), and that 
is given as fully 16C650, 16C550, 16C450  compatible (and supported by linux).
Anyway, I have some problems using it with the baycom.
I'm using kernel 2.4.26 and latest ax25 suite. When I start up the whole 
thing, I have no errors until I invoke ifconfig. Then I have the following 
error message:

SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such device or address (repeated 2 times).

Of course, I can't use the baycom modem at all. Checking the logs it seems 
that the baycom module (baycom_ser_fdx.o) can't correctly recognize the 
uart and/or the serial port (which by the way is at address 0xb408 irq 11), 
because I don't get any "ser_fdx: open address 0xb408 etc." line in any log.
I tried checking the source code to see if it has problems recognizing the 
UART, but actually I have no clue where to search for problems. I added 
some printk() calls in several points in the code (ser12_check_uart() and 
ser12_open()) but I have no output from these, so I assume that the problem 
is elsewhere...

Can anyone help me?
I know C well enough to make some changes in the code of the driver, but 
actually I'd like to have some more clues to know where the problem is 
located...

The PC is located in a remote site (with no internet access), so things 
slow down a little...

Thanks very much,
73 & Ciao from Italy
Fabio
IZ4AFW

Re: Need help with serial card + baycom

[Jim Bayer]

Fabio,

You may want to check out your /etc/modules.conf file to see if the baycom_ser_fdx is included. 
If you run the command "modinfo baycom_ser_fdx" it will return all possible parameters for the
module.  Another debugging method is to do an insmod or modprobe of the baycom_ser_fdx module at
root's command prompt and see what it complains about.  Also if you run dmesg and pipe it to less
(or more) you may see what the problem was at the system init time.  ALso a check of
/var/log/messages may net some diagnostic error reports.

Otherwise, since I don't know too much about the baycom, all I can suugest is that you compile the
module against the kernel source of the running kernel and try it again.  Since you know C, I
assume you know how to make the package.  I've run into issues with automake so be sure to
interrogate all of the make conversation.

'73 and good luck!


Jim - KC9AOP


--- Fabio IZ4AFW <iz4afw@libero.it> wrote:

> Hi guys,
>      I'm new to the list, and I need help to use a baycom modem with linux.
> 
> I used it before for a long time with linux, connected directly to the 
> RS-232 ports on the mainboard, and I had no problems, neither configuring 
> it, nor using it on the air.
> Now I need using those ports for different tasks, so I decided to buy a PCI 
> cards with 2 additional RS232 ports (and another LPT, but this is not 
> interesting to the problem).
> I bought a PCI cards made by SUNIX (model 4079T), based on the SUN1889 
> chip, which features a 16C650 UART (FIFO with 32 bytes, base speed 921600 
> bps), which linux seems to recognize (setserial can set the various 
> parameters, even if actually it recognizes it as a 16550A UART), and that 
> is given as fully 16C650, 16C550, 16C450  compatible (and supported by linux).
> Anyway, I have some problems using it with the baycom.
> I'm using kernel 2.4.26 and latest ax25 suite. When I start up the whole 
> thing, I have no errors until I invoke ifconfig. Then I have the following 
> error message:
> 
> SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such device or address (repeated 2 times).
> 
> Of course, I can't use the baycom modem at all. Checking the logs it seems 
> that the baycom module (baycom_ser_fdx.o) can't correctly recognize the 
> uart and/or the serial port (which by the way is at address 0xb408 irq 11), 
> because I don't get any "ser_fdx: open address 0xb408 etc." line in any log.
> I tried checking the source code to see if it has problems recognizing the 
> UART, but actually I have no clue where to search for problems. I added 
> some printk() calls in several points in the code (ser12_check_uart() and 
> ser12_open()) but I have no output from these, so I assume that the problem 
> is elsewhere...
> 
> Can anyone help me?
> I know C well enough to make some changes in the code of the driver, but 
> actually I'd like to have some more clues to know where the problem is 
> located...
> 
> The PC is located in a remote site (with no internet access), so things 
> slow down a little...
> 
> Thanks very much,
> 73 & Ciao from Italy
> Fabio
> IZ4AFW
> 
> 
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Re: Need help with serial card + baycom

[Fabio IZ4AFW]

At 21:17 14/11/2004, you wrote:
>Fabio,
>
>You may want to check out your /etc/modules.conf file to see if the 
>baycom_ser_fdx is included.
>If you run the command "modinfo baycom_ser_fdx" it will return all 
>possible parameters for the
>module.  Another debugging method is to do an insmod or modprobe of the 
>baycom_ser_fdx module at
>root's command prompt and see what it complains about.  Also if you run 
>dmesg and pipe it to less
>(or more) you may see what the problem was at the system init time.  ALso 
>a check of
>/var/log/messages may net some diagnostic error reports.

Jim,
  thanks for your reply and for your suggestions.
Actually I have already tried those steps, and the problem is that I have 
no error messages from the baycom_ser_fdx module!
All seems ok until I arrive at the ifconfig step, where I get those two 
"SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such device or address" error messages.
 From a deeper analysis, it seems the problem is related to opening the 
serial port device: when I use it on the mainboard's rs232 ports, I find a 
line in /var/log/messages something like (I haven't the PC here, I go by 
memory) "ser_fdx: device at address 0x3f8 irq 4"; when I use the PCI card, 
I should find something similar with the appropriately changed parameters 
(address 0xb408, irq 11), instead the line is not there. This is why I 
added the printk() calls into the source code, but it seems they're not 
called at all (I have no output in the /var/log/messages file).

Thanks,
Fabio IZ4AFW

Re: Need help with serial card + baycom

[Fabio IZ4AFW]

At 20:47 14/11/2004, you wrote:

>Hi guys,
>     I'm new to the list, and I need help to use a baycom modem with linux.
[...]

I'm looking at the source code in baycom_ser_fdx.c just now, and noticed 
this line in ser12_open():

if (!dev->base_addr || dev->base_addr > 0x1000-SER12_EXTENT || dev->irq < 2 
|| dev->irq > 15)
                 return -ENXIO;

is there a reason why dev->base_addr must be less than (0x1000-SER12_EXTENT)?
If, like in this case, SER12_EXTENT==8, then my card at base address 0xb408 
doesn't pass this check...
I'll try to remove the check as soon as possible to see if this solves the 
problem... but probably that check is there for a good reason ;)
Anyone?

Thanks,
Fabio IZ4AFW

Re: Need help with serial card + baycom

[Thomas Sailer]

On Sun, 2004-11-14 at 23:47 +0100, Fabio IZ4AFW wrote:

> is there a reason why dev->base_addr must be less than (0x1000-SER12_EXTENT)?
> If, like in this case, SER12_EXTENT==8, then my card at base address 0xb408 
> doesn't pass this check...

This is just a sanity check that the parameters are in the ISA range.
Which doesn't make sense any more...

> I'll try to remove the check as soon as possible to see if this solves the 
> problem... but probably that check is there for a good reason ;)

If it works for you, please submit a patch to the kernel lieutenants
(Dave Miller in this case probably).

Thanks,
Tom

Re: Need help with serial card + baycom

[Fabio IZ4AFW]

At 08:07 15/11/2004, you wrote:
>This is just a sanity check that the parameters are in the ISA range.
>Which doesn't make sense any more...
>
> > I'll try to remove the check as soon as possible to see if this solves the
> > problem... but probably that check is there for a good reason ;)
>
>If it works for you, please submit a patch to the kernel lieutenants
>(Dave Miller in this case probably).
>
>Thanks,
>Tom

OK, I'll let you know ASAP and eventually I'll contact Dave to submit the 
patch.
Probably I'll also have to set the correct divisor in the UART because 
baud_base is 921600 on my PCI board instead of 115200... and I assume that 
using setserial is pointless, because the module doesn't use the standard 
serial support of the kernel...

Thanks a lot for the info Tom!

Ciao
Fabio IZ4AFW