tncs and kiss mode

tncs and kiss mode

[Ted Gervais]

What is the command to take my kpc-9612 out of kiss mode and also to put it 
back in kiss.
I want to do this from a linux console rather than through an 
application.  Just a simple way of bringing up an empty terminal  on my 
linux machine and typing in something that will talk to the tnc.


---
Ted Gervais,
Coldbrook, Nova Scotia, Canada

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Jeremy Utley]

On 1/29/06, Ted Gervais <ve1drg@av.eastlink.ca> wrote:
> What is the command to take my kpc-9612 out of kiss mode and also to put it
> back in kiss.
> I want to do this from a linux console rather than through an
> application.  Just a simple way of bringing up an empty terminal  on my
> linux machine and typing in something that will talk to the tnc.

I don't know about the 9612, but on both the KAM and KPC3 to drop out
of KISS mode into normal mode, you sent a series of 3 ASCII characters
- ASC 192, ASC 255, ASC192.  In the old days I did this via the
Alt+numeric keypad method.  I suspect the 9612 is the same, as
Kantronics has usually stayed pretty stable with their command set.

To shift back into KISS mode, you must have the "command" prompt, not
be in convers mode - then just sending the commands "interface kiss"
followed by "reset" will place the KAM into KISS mode.

Hope this helps!

Jeremy

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Ted Gervais]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Jeremy Utley wrote:

> On 1/29/06, Ted Gervais <ve1drg@av.eastlink.ca> wrote:
>> What is the command to take my kpc-9612 out of kiss mode and also to put it
>> back in kiss.
>> I want to do this from a linux console rather than through an
>> application.  Just a simple way of bringing up an empty terminal  on my
>> linux machine and typing in something that will talk to the tnc.
>
> I don't know about the 9612, but on both the KAM and KPC3 to drop out
> of KISS mode into normal mode, you sent a series of 3 ASCII characters
> - ASC 192, ASC 255, ASC192.  In the old days I did this via the
> Alt+numeric keypad method.  I suspect the 9612 is the same, as
> Kantronics has usually stayed pretty stable with their command set.

Alright.  I remember that.

>
> To shift back into KISS mode, you must have the "command" prompt, not
> be in convers mode - then just sending the commands "interface kiss"
> followed by "reset" will place the KAM into KISS mode.


Yes.  But can you get into the "command" prompt from a linux console??
Or is that only possible using Dos.??

>
> Hope this helps!
>
> Jeremy
> -
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>

---
Ted Gervais
Coldbrook, Nova Scotia
Canada. (ve1drg)

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Bob Nielsen]

On Jan 30, 2006, at 1:47 AM, Ted Gervais wrote:

> On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Jeremy Utley wrote:
>
>> On 1/29/06, Ted Gervais <ve1drg@av.eastlink.ca> wrote:
>>> What is the command to take my kpc-9612 out of kiss mode and also  
>>> to put it
>>> back in kiss.
>>> I want to do this from a linux console rather than through an
>>> application.  Just a simple way of bringing up an empty terminal   
>>> on my
>>> linux machine and typing in something that will talk to the tnc.
>>
>> I don't know about the 9612, but on both the KAM and KPC3 to drop out
>> of KISS mode into normal mode, you sent a series of 3 ASCII  
>> characters
>> - ASC 192, ASC 255, ASC192.  In the old days I did this via the
>> Alt+numeric keypad method.  I suspect the 9612 is the same, as
>> Kantronics has usually stayed pretty stable with their command set.
>
> Alright.  I remember that.

Curt, WE7U created kiss-of.pl, a perl script that is part of Xastir  
to do that.  Here is the pertinent section:

# This script will send the proper characters to STDOUT to command a
# KISS TNC out of KISS mode.  Redirect it to the port that the TNC
# is connected to.  Turn off the port in Xastir first.

# It is assumed that the baud rate on the port and the baud rate of
# the TNC match, if not, this won't work.  If you've just been using
# the TNC in Xastir, they probably match.

# Use the script like this:
#
# ./kiss-off.pl >/dev/ttyS1
#


sleep 1;
printf("%c%c%c", 192, 255, 192);
sleep 1;

You would need to set the serial port speed to match the TNC using  
setserial prior to doing this.

>>
>> To shift back into KISS mode, you must have the "command" prompt, not
>> be in convers mode - then just sending the commands "interface kiss"
>> followed by "reset" will place the KAM into KISS mode.
>
>
> Yes.  But can you get into the "command" prompt from a linux console??
> Or is that only possible using Dos.??

You need to be able to talk to the TNC through a serial port.  I  
recall using Minicom to do this in Linux some eons ago (I have been  
using KISS-only EPROMs for the past ten+ years and haven't needed to  
do this), although redirecting the contents of a text file to the  
serial port should work, provided the TNC was in command mode.

73,
Bob N7XY

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Wilson G. Hein]

Easiest way is to use minicom (terminal program) to make the changes in
the tnc. There maybe ways to do this using echo to send data to the
serial line (/dev/ttyS0), I find it just as easy to use minicom.

Good luck!

Willie, WJ3G

On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 01:47, Ted Gervais wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Jeremy Utley wrote:
> 
> > On 1/29/06, Ted Gervais <ve1drg@av.eastlink.ca> wrote:
> >> What is the command to take my kpc-9612 out of kiss mode and also to put it
> >> back in kiss.
> >> I want to do this from a linux console rather than through an
> >> application.  Just a simple way of bringing up an empty terminal  on my
> >> linux machine and typing in something that will talk to the tnc.
> >
> > I don't know about the 9612, but on both the KAM and KPC3 to drop out
> > of KISS mode into normal mode, you sent a series of 3 ASCII characters
> > - ASC 192, ASC 255, ASC192.  In the old days I did this via the
> > Alt+numeric keypad method.  I suspect the 9612 is the same, as
> > Kantronics has usually stayed pretty stable with their command set.
> 
> Alright.  I remember that.
> 
> >
> > To shift back into KISS mode, you must have the "command" prompt, not
> > be in convers mode - then just sending the commands "interface kiss"
> > followed by "reset" will place the KAM into KISS mode.
> 
> 
> Yes.  But can you get into the "command" prompt from a linux console??
> Or is that only possible using Dos.??
> 
> >
> > Hope this helps!
> >
> > Jeremy
> > -
> > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> >
> 
> ---
> Ted Gervais
> Coldbrook, Nova Scotia
> Canada. (ve1drg)
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Gérard / F6FGZ]

"Wilson G. Hein" wrote :

> Easiest way is to use minicom (terminal program) to make the changes in
> the tnc. There maybe ways to do this using echo to send data to the
> serial line (/dev/ttyS0), I find it just as easy to use minicom.

(1) To exit:

echo "Exiting KISS mode on port COM1"
echo -e "\300\377\300\r" >/dev/ttyS0

(2) To enter again, the same kind of script might work with KPC-9612 (not tested):

echo "Entering KISS mode on port COM1"
echo -e "INTFACE KISS\r" >/dev/ttyS0

Then do a reset.

--
73 Gérard F6FGZ



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Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Jeremy Utley]

On 1/30/06, Gérard / F6FGZ <f6fgz@free.fr> wrote:
> "Wilson G. Hein" wrote :
>
> > Easiest way is to use minicom (terminal program) to make the changes in
> > the tnc. There maybe ways to do this using echo to send data to the
> > serial line (/dev/ttyS0), I find it just as easy to use minicom.
>
> (1) To exit:
>
> echo "Exiting KISS mode on port COM1"
> echo -e "\300\377\300\r" >/dev/ttyS0
>
> (2) To enter again, the same kind of script might work with KPC-9612 (not tested):
>
> echo "Entering KISS mode on port COM1"
> echo -e "INTFACE KISS\r" >/dev/ttyS0
>
> Then do a reset.
>
> --
> 73 Gérard F6FGZ

One thing you might want to do is also send a CTRL-C character (ASC
03) before sending the INTFACE KISS command - that way, if you, for
some reason, aren't in the command mode on the TNC, it will put you
there.

Just a thought.

Jeremy, NW7JU
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Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Douglas Cole]

I have been following this thread with much interest and really
appreciate you folks sharing what you have so far, it has been very
educational, but I am missing something in the below posting which I
hope someone can clear up...

On 1/30/06, Gérard / F6FGZ <f6fgz@free.fr> wrote:
> "Wilson G. Hein" wrote :
>
> > Easiest way is to use minicom (terminal program) to make the changes in
> > the tnc. There maybe ways to do this using echo to send data to the
> > serial line (/dev/ttyS0), I find it just as easy to use minicom.
>
> (1) To exit:
>
> echo "Exiting KISS mode on port COM1"
> echo -e "\300\377\300\r" >/dev/ttyS0

I am not sure what the "\300\377\300\r" is doing for me, I know the
numbers are equivelants to something, but they aren't decimal
equivelants to ASCII characters, so what are they and where can I find
a chart that can give me a listing of this type of thing?
I have found a listing of "normal" ASCII character codes but they
don't show 300 or 377 ...

tia for any input to help this "greenhorn" who is wanting to know why?  :0)

Douglas Cole
N7BFS
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Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Tomi Manninen]

On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 22:30, Douglas Cole wrote:

> I am not sure what the "\300\377\300\r" is doing for me, I know the
> numbers are equivelants to something, but they aren't decimal
> equivelants to ASCII characters, so what are they and where can I find
> a chart that can give me a listing of this type of thing?
> I have found a listing of "normal" ASCII character codes but they
> don't show 300 or 377 ...

man echo:

...
       \NNN   the character whose ASCII code is NNN (octal)
...

-- 
Tomi Manninen / OH2BNS / KP20JF74

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Douglas Cole]

On 1/30/06, Douglas Cole <doug.n7bfs@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been following this thread with much interest and really
> appreciate you folks sharing what you have so far, it has been very
> educational, but I am missing something in the below posting which I
> hope someone can clear up...
>
> On 1/30/06, Gérard / F6FGZ <f6fgz@free.fr> wrote:
> > "Wilson G. Hein" wrote :
> >
> > > Easiest way is to use minicom (terminal program) to make the changes in
> > > the tnc. There maybe ways to do this using echo to send data to the
> > > serial line (/dev/ttyS0), I find it just as easy to use minicom.
> >
> > (1) To exit:
> >
> > echo "Exiting KISS mode on port COM1"
> > echo -e "\300\377\300\r" >/dev/ttyS0
>
> I am not sure what the "\300\377\300\r" is doing for me, I know the
> numbers are equivelants to something, but they aren't decimal
> equivelants to ASCII characters, so what are they and where can I find
> a chart that can give me a listing of this type of thing?
> I have found a listing of "normal" ASCII character codes but they
> don't show 300 or 377 ...

Ok, I still don't know what the character values mean, but I read the
man page for "echo" and figured that you must be using octal and know
that 300 is octal for 192 decimal and 377 is octal for 255 decimal...

But the ASCII charts I have don't explain what 192 and 255 are ,
anyone can point me to a chart that does ?

tia for any input :)

Doug
N7BFS
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Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Douglas Cole]

On 1/30/06, Douglas Cole <doug.n7bfs@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/30/06, Douglas Cole <doug.n7bfs@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have been following this thread with much interest and really
> > appreciate you folks sharing what you have so far, it has been very
> > educational, but I am missing something in the below posting which I
> > hope someone can clear up...
> >
> > On 1/30/06, Gérard / F6FGZ <f6fgz@free.fr> wrote:
> > > "Wilson G. Hein" wrote :
> > >
> > > > Easiest way is to use minicom (terminal program) to make the changes in
> > > > the tnc. There maybe ways to do this using echo to send data to the
> > > > serial line (/dev/ttyS0), I find it just as easy to use minicom.
> > >
> > > (1) To exit:
> > >
> > > echo "Exiting KISS mode on port COM1"
> > > echo -e "\300\377\300\r" >/dev/ttyS0
> >
> > I am not sure what the "\300\377\300\r" is doing for me, I know the
> > numbers are equivelants to something, but they aren't decimal
> > equivelants to ASCII characters, so what are they and where can I find
> > a chart that can give me a listing of this type of thing?
> > I have found a listing of "normal" ASCII character codes but they
> > don't show 300 or 377 ...
>
> Ok, I still don't know what the character values mean, but I read the
> man page for "echo" and figured that you must be using octal and know
> that 300 is octal for 192 decimal and 377 is octal for 255 decimal...
>
> But the ASCII charts I have don't explain what 192 and 255 are ,
> anyone can point me to a chart that does ?
>
> tia for any input :)
>

Wow! Now thats what I call quick, as soon as I hit the send button, I
get a bunch of replies back echo'ing (pun intended) what I had
learned, but now I also know that the characters are special to the
tnc's and so wouldn't show up on the charts I have looked at, so that
makes sense :)

Thanks again for the input folks, now please return to your techie
banter, I am learning all sorts of things here to hopefully help me
with my packet system here in my area, this is great!

73
Doug
N7BFS
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Re: tncs and kiss mode

[J. Lance Cotton]

Douglas Cole wrote:
d
> Ok, I still don't know what the character values mean, but I read the
> man page for "echo" and figured that you must be using octal and know
> that 300 is octal for 192 decimal and 377 is octal for 255 decimal...
> 
> But the ASCII charts I have don't explain what 192 and 255 are ,
> anyone can point me to a chart that does ?

They're pretty much just arbitrary values. KISS is an 8-bit clean protocol. 
It doesn't operate from an "ascii characters" point of view, it operates in 
a "bytes of data" POV.

There are a few "reserved" bytes for special functions like sending commands 
to the TNC rather than sending data to be transmitted.

192 is called "FEND" for "Frame End" and is used to bracket (front and back) 
all packets to and from a KISS device.

255 is essentially the "KISS OFF" command, if the TNC supports it.

There is another special byte called FESC "Frame Escape". If one of the 
reserved bytes happens to appear in the data stream, you prefix it with FESC 
and then the KISS device knows that the byte following FESC should be 
treated as plain data rather than a command.

-- 
J. Lance Cotton, KJ5O
joe@lightningflash.net
http://kj5o.lightningflash.net
Three Step Plan: 1. Take over the world. 2. Get a lot of cookies. 3. Eat the 
cookies.

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Oliver Hohlfeld]

Hi,

> Ok, I still don't know what the character values mean

These are specific KISS Mode commands which are interpreted by the TNC.
You can try to look them up in a KISS related document such as [1].
Basically, the decimal value 192 stands for the end of a frame. The
next one, 255, is the most important value to achieve your goal - this
one exists the KISS mode. The repeated usage of Frame End at the end
of the sequence is just a little workaround for some TNCs, as they
'wait too long' before interpreting the frame.

Cheers,
Oliver

[1] http://people.qualcomm.com/karn/papers/kiss.html

-- 
Oliver Hohlfeld | DO1FDK | http://www.ohohlfeld.com
http://dk0td.afthd.tu-darmstadt.de/~do1fdk/ | www.ohohlfeld.com/gpgkey.txt
                 - long long ago; /* in a galaxy far far away */ -
                  - I am not a bug I am a undocumented feature -

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Douglas Cole]

On 1/30/06, Oliver Hohlfeld <Oliver.Hohlfeld@web.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > Ok, I still don't know what the character values mean
>
> These are specific KISS Mode commands which are interpreted by the TNC.
> You can try to look them up in a KISS related document such as [1].
> Basically, the decimal value 192 stands for the end of a frame. The
> next one, 255, is the most important value to achieve your goal - this
> one exists the KISS mode. The repeated usage of Frame End at the end
> of the sequence is just a little workaround for some TNCs, as they
> 'wait too long' before interpreting the frame.
>
> Cheers,
> Oliver
>
> [1] http://people.qualcomm.com/karn/papers/kiss.html
>
> --
> Oliver Hohlfeld | DO1FDK | http://www.ohohlfeld.com
> http://dk0td.afthd.tu-darmstadt.de/~do1fdk/ | www.ohohlfeld.com/gpgkey.txt
>                  - long long ago; /* in a galaxy far far away */ -
>                   - I am not a bug I am a undocumented feature -
>
:)
Thanks Oliver, very informative thread, now I just need to go read,
and let it sink into my spongy head, I love this group!

Doug
N7BFS

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Oliver Hohlfeld]

Hi,

> > echo -e "\300\377\300\r" >/dev/ttyS0
>
> I am not sure what the "\300\377\300\r" is doing for me, I know the
> numbers are equivelants to something, but they aren't decimal
> equivelants to ASCII characters, so what are they and where can I find
> a chart that can give me a listing of this type of thing?
 
You're right, the numbers above aren't decimal numbers. In fact these
are backslash-escaped characters whose ASCII code is NNN (octal) (see
man echo for further details) - whereas NNN is the representation of
the ASCII code to base 8 (Octal). There're lots of calculators available
which let you convert those numbers between different bases, such as
8 and 10 (used in this example).

By using such a calculator you will get the following results:
300 = 192 and 377 = 255. The letter representation might look more
familiar to you.

The last escaped r is just a carriage return.

Cheers,
Oliver

-- 
Oliver Hohlfeld | DO1FDK | http://www.ohohlfeld.com
http://dk0td.afthd.tu-darmstadt.de/~do1fdk/ | www.ohohlfeld.com/gpgkey.txt
                 - long long ago; /* in a galaxy far far away */ -
                  - I am not a bug I am a undocumented feature -

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Oliver Hohlfeld]

Hi,

> > echo -e "\300\377\300\r" >/dev/ttyS0
>
> I am not sure what the "\300\377\300\r" is doing for me, I know the
> numbers are equivelants to something, but they aren't decimal
> equivelants to ASCII characters, so what are they and where can I find
> a chart that can give me a listing of this type of thing?
 
You're right, the numbers above aren't decimal numbers. In fact these
are backslash-escaped characters whose ASCII code is NNN (octal) (see
man echo for further details) - whereas NNN is the representation of
the ASCII code to base 8 (Octal). There're lots of calculators available
which let you convert those numbers between different bases, such as
8 and 10 (used in this example).

By using such a calculator you will get the following results:
300 = 192 and 377 = 255. The letter representation might look more
familiar to you.

The last escaped r is just a carriage return.

Cheers,
Oliver

-- 
Oliver Hohlfeld | DO1FDK | http://www.ohohlfeld.com
http://dk0td.afthd.tu-darmstadt.de/~do1fdk/ | www.ohohlfeld.com/gpgkey.txt
                 - long long ago; /* in a galaxy far far away */ -
                  - I am not a bug I am a undocumented feature -

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Bill Vodall WA7NWP]

Once kissattach has grabbed a serial port, it's apparently not possible 
to do the "echo's" or minicom operations to that port without killing 
the kissattach.

No problem for bringing a TNC out of KISS mode:

   kissparms -x -p <port>

What would be very cool is a tweak to kissparms to allow sending text to 
the port.  Something like:

   kissparms -p <port> -t "^C\rINTFACE KISS\rRESET\r"

A quick and dirty dump terminal to talk to the tnc manually would be 
useful at times too..


So many projects...

  > (2) To enter again, the same kind of script might work with KPC-9612 
(not tested):
> 
> echo "Entering KISS mode on port COM1"
> echo -e "INTFACE KISS\r" >/dev/ttyS0


73,
Bill - WA7NWP

Re: tncs and kiss mode

[Curt, WE7U]

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006, Bill Vodall WA7NWP wrote:

>
> Once kissattach has grabbed a serial port, it's apparently not possible
> to do the "echo's" or minicom operations to that port without killing
> the kissattach.

Here's a trick that somebody just tried with Xastir in order to
share a serial port with another application:


  "Running now ok with :

   tee /dev/ptyt0 /dev/ptyt1 < /dev/ttyS0 > /dev/null &

   I can have now 2 software : one attached to /dev/ttyt0 and the
   other one to ttyt1."


Interesting trick!  I have not done this myself, but suggested it to
him originally as something to try.

We have instructions in our docs for hooking to a serial port across
a network, but he's the first user that wanted more than one app
trying to talk to the same serial port.

Your mileage may vary.

--
Curt, WE7U.   APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

CONVERS Primary server

[Bill Vodall WA7NWP]

I'm setting up a couple CONVERS nodes.  Everything is going good but I'm 
a bit confused with the comments in the CONF file.

===
# Link:
#
# Parameters:   <Remote_host>   <remote_address:port>   [primary_link]
Link            Chicpe          irc.n1uro.ampr.org:3600
Link            SpamNet-1       eth1.mara.org:3600      Chicpe
# Link          Kuopio_Fl       blues.pspt.fi:3600      SpamNet-1
# Link          USAHub          199.0.154.23:3600       Kuopio_Fl
#
# In the above example, Kuopio_FI is your primary link, Stockholm is
# a backup for Kuopio_FI, and Foobar is a backup for Stockholm. conversd
# will try to keep connected with Kuopio_FI, and use Stockholm and
# Foobar as backups in the listed order of preferrence.
===

Is this saying that Chicpe is the local primary link and the primary 
link also by SpamNet.   Or is the primary link OF Chicpe SpamNet-1 and 
thus it'll be the local backup?

Are these hosts still valid?

Thanks,
Bill - WA7NWP