FreeBSD/Linux Kernel Cross Reference
sys/Documentation/stallion.txt

     
     Stallion Multiport Serial Driver Readme
     ---------------------------------------
     
     Copyright (C) 1994-1999,  Stallion Technologies (support@stallion.com).
     
     Version:   5.5.1
     Date:      28MAR99
     
    
    
    1. INTRODUCTION
    
    There are two drivers that work with the different families of Stallion
    multiport serial boards. One is for the Stallion smart boards - that is
    EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 and EasyConnection 8/64-PCI, the other for
    the true Stallion intelligent multiport boards - EasyConnection 8/64
    (ISA, EISA, MCA), EasyConnection/RA-PCI, ONboard and Brumby.
    
    If you are using any of the Stallion intelligent multiport boards (Brumby,
    ONboard, EasyConnection 8/64 (ISA, EISA, MCA), EasyConnection/RA-PCI) with
    Linux you will need to get the driver utility package. This package is
    available at most of the Linux archive sites (and on CD-ROMs that contain
    these archives). The file will be called stallion-X.X.X.tar.gz where X.X.X
    will be the version number. In particular this package contains the board
    embedded executable images that are required for these boards. It also
    contains the downloader program. These boards cannot be used without this.
    
    The Stallion Technologies ftp site, ftp.stallion.com, will always have
    the latest version of the driver utility package. Other sites that usually
    have the latest version are tsx-11.mit.edu, sunsite.unc.edu and their
    mirrors.
    
    ftp.stallion.com:/drivers/ata5/Linux/v550.tar.gz
    tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/packages/stallion/stallion-5.5.0.tar.gz
    sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/kernel/patches/serial/stallion-5.5.0.tar.gz
    
    As of the printing of this document the latest version of the driver
    utility package is 5.5.0. If a later version is now available then you
    should use the latest version.
    
    If you are using the EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 or EasyConnection 8/64-PCI
    boards then you don't need this package. Although it does have a handy
    script to create the /dev device nodes for these boards, and a serial stats
    display program.
    
    If you require DIP switch settings, EISA or MCA configuration files, or any
    other information related to Stallion boards then have a look at Stallion's
    web pages at http://www.stallion.com.
    
    
    
    2. INSTALLATION
    
    The drivers can be used as loadable modules or compiled into the kernel.
    You can choose which when doing a "config" on the kernel.
    
    All ISA, EISA and MCA boards that you want to use need to be configured into
    the driver(s). All PCI boards will be automatically detected when you load
    the driver - so they do not need to be entered into the driver(s)
    configuration structure. Note that kernel PCI support is required to use PCI
    boards.
    
    There are two methods of configuring ISA, EISA and MCA boards into the drivers.
    If using the driver as a loadable module then the simplest method is to pass
    the driver configuration as module arguments. The other method is to modify
    the driver source to add configuration lines for each board in use.
    
    If you have pre-built Stallion driver modules then the module argument
    configuration method should be used. A lot of Linux distributions come with
    pre-built driver modules in /lib/modules/X.Y.Z/misc for the kernel in use.
    That makes things pretty simple to get going.
    
    
    2.1 MODULE DRIVER CONFIGURATION:
    
    The simplest configuration for modules is to use the module load arguments
    to configure any ISA, EISA or MCA boards. PCI boards are automatically
    detected, so do not need any additional configuration at all.
    
    If using EasyIO, EasyConnection 8/32 ISA or MCA, or EasyConnection 8/63-PCI
    boards then use the "stallion" driver module, Otherwise if you are using
    an EasyConnection 8/64 ISA, EISA or MCA, EasyConnection/RA-PCI, ONboard,
    Brumby or original Stallion board then use the "istallion" driver module.
    
    Typically to load up the smart board driver use:
    
        insmod stallion.o
    
    This will load the EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 driver. It will output a
    message to say that it loaded and print the driver version number. It will
    also print out whether it found the configured boards or not. These messages
    may not appear on the console, but typically are always logged to
    /var/adm/messages or /var/log/syslog files - depending on how the klogd and
    syslogd daemons are setup on your system.
    
    To load the intelligent board driver use:
    
        insmod istallion.o
   
   It will output similar messages to the smart board driver.
   
   If not using an auto-detectable board type (that is a PCI board) then you
   will also need to supply command line arguments to the "insmod" command
   when loading the driver. The general form of the configuration argument is
   
       board?=<name>[,<ioaddr>[,<addr>][,<irq>]]
   
   where:
   
       board?  -- specifies the arbitrary board number of this board,
                  can be in the range 0 to 3.
   
       name    -- textual name of this board. The board name is the comman
                  board name, or any "shortened" version of that. The board
                  type number may also be used here.
   
       ioaddr  -- specifies the I/O address of this board. This argument is
                  optional, but should generally be specified.
   
       addr    -- optional second address argument. Some board types require
                  a second I/O address, some require a memory address. The
                  exact meaning of this argument depends on the board type.
   
       irq     -- optional IRQ line used by this board.
   
   Up to 4 board configuration arguments can be specified on the load line.
   Here is some examples:
   
       insmod stallion.o board0=easyio,0x2a0,5
   
   This configures an EasyIO board as board 0 at I/O address 0x2a0 and IRQ 5.
   
       insmod istallion.o board3=ec8/64,0x2c0,0xcc000
   
   This configures an EasyConnection 8/64 ISA as board 3 at I/O address 0x2c0 at
   memory address 0xcc000.
   
       insmod stallion.o board1=ec8/32-at,0x2a0,0x280,10
   
   This configures an EasyConnection 8/32 ISA board at primary I/O address 0x2a0,
   secondary address 0x280 and IRQ 10.
   
   You will probably want to enter this module load and configuration information
   into your system startup scripts so that the drivers are loaded and configured
   on each system boot. Typically the start up script would be something line
   /etc/rc.d/rc.modules.
   
   
   2.2 STATIC DRIVER CONFIGURATION:
   
   For static driver configuration you need to modify the driver source code.
   Entering ISA, EISA and MCA boards into the driver(s) configuration structure
   involves editing the driver(s) source file. It's pretty easy if you follow
   the instructions below. Both drivers can support up to 4 boards. The smart
   card driver (the stallion.c driver) supports any combination of EasyIO and
   EasyConnection 8/32 boards (up to a total of 4). The intelligent driver
   supports any combination of ONboards, Brumbys, Stallions and EasyConnection
   8/64 (ISA and EISA) boards (up to a total of 4).
   
   To set up the driver(s) for the boards that you want to use you need to
   edit the appropriate driver file and add configuration entries.
   
   If using EasyIO or EasyConnection 8/32 ISA or MCA boards, do:
      vi /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/stallion.c
         - find the definition of the stl_brdconf array (of structures)
           near the top of the file
         - modify this to match the boards you are going to install
           (the comments before this structure should help)
         - save and exit
   
   If using ONboard, Brumby, Stallion or EasyConnection 8/64 (ISA or EISA)
   boards then do:
      vi /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/istallion.c
         - find the definition of the stli_brdconf array (of structures)
           near the top of the file
         - modify this to match the boards you are going to install
           (the comments before this structure should help)
         - save and exit
   
   Once you have set up the board configurations then you are ready to build
   the kernel or modules.
   
   When the new kernel is booted, or the loadable module loaded then the
   driver will emit some kernel trace messages about whether the configured
   boards were detected or not. Depending on how your system logger is set
   up these may come out on the console, or just be logged to
   /var/adm/messages or /var/log/syslog. You should check the messages to
   confirm that all is well.
   
   
   2.3 SHARING INTERRUPTS
   
   It is possible to share interrupts between multiple EasyIO and
   EasyConnection 8/32 boards in an EISA system. To do this you must be using
   static driver configuration, modifying the driver source code to add driver
   configuration. Then a couple of extra things are required:
   
   1. When entering the board resources into the stallion.c file you need to
      mark the boards as using level triggered interrupts. Do this by replacing
      the "0" entry at field position 6 (the last field) in the board
      configuration structure with a "1". (This is the structure that defines
      the board type, I/O locations, etc. for each board). All boards that are
      sharing an interrupt must be set this way, and each board should have the
      same interrupt number specified here as well. Now build the module or
      kernel as you would normally.
   
   2. When physically installing the boards into the system you must enter
      the system EISA configuration utility. You will need to install the EISA
      configuration files for *all* the EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 boards
      that are sharing interrupts. The Stallion EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32
      EISA configuration files required are supplied by Stallion Technologies
      on the EASY Utilities floppy diskette (usually supplied in the box with
      the board when purchased. If not, you can pick it up from Stallion's FTP
      site, ftp.stallion.com). You will need to edit the board resources to
      choose level triggered interrupts, and make sure to set each board's
      interrupt to the same IRQ number.
   
   You must complete both the above steps for this to work. When you reboot
   or load the driver your EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 boards will be
   sharing interrupts.
   
   
   2.4 USING HIGH SHARED MEMORY
   
   The EasyConnection 8/64-EI, ONboard and Stallion boards are capable of
   using shared memory addresses above the usual 640K - 1Mb range. The ONboard
   ISA and the Stallion boards can be programmed to use memory addresses up to
   16Mb (the ISA bus addressing limit), and the EasyConnection 8/64-EI and
   ONboard/E can be programmed for memory addresses up to 4Gb (the EISA bus
   addressing limit).
   
   The higher than 1Mb memory addresses are fully supported by this driver.
   Just enter the address as you normally would for a lower than 1Mb address
   (in the driver's board configuration structure).
   
   
   
   2.5 TROUBLE SHOOTING
   
   If a board is not found by the driver but is actually in the system then the
   most likely problem is that the I/O address is wrong. Change the module load
   argument for the loadable module form. Or change it in the driver stallion.c
   or istallion.c configuration structure and rebuild the kernel or modules, or
   change it on the board.
   
   On EasyIO and EasyConnection 8/32 boards the IRQ is software programmable, so
   if there is a conflict you may need to change the IRQ used for a board. There
   are no interrupts to worry about for ONboard, Brumby or EasyConnection 8/64
   (ISA, EISA and MCA) boards. The memory region on EasyConnection 8/64 and
   ONboard boards is software programmable, but not on the Brumby boards.
   
   
   
   3. USING THE DRIVERS
   
   3.1 INTELLIGENT DRIVER OPERATION
   
   The intelligent boards also need to have their "firmware" code downloaded
   to them. This is done via a user level application supplied in the driver
   utility package called "stlload". Compile this program wherever you dropped
   the package files, by typing "make". In its simplest form you can then type
   
       ./stlload -i cdk.sys
   
   in this directory and that will download board 0 (assuming board 0 is an
   EasyConnection 8/64 or EasyConnection/RA board). To download to an
   ONboard, Brumby or Stallion do:
   
       ./stlload -i 2681.sys
   
   Normally you would want all boards to be downloaded as part of the standard
   system startup. To achieve this, add one of the lines above into the
   /etc/rc.d/rc.S or /etc/rc.d/rc.serial file. To download each board just add
   the "-b <brd-number>" option to the line. You will need to download code for
   every board. You should probably move the stlload program into a system
   directory, such as /usr/sbin. Also, the default location of the cdk.sys image
   file in the stlload down-loader is /usr/lib/stallion. Create that directory
   and put the cdk.sys and 2681.sys files in it. (It's a convenient place to put
   them anyway). As an example your /etc/rc.d/rc.S file might have the
   following lines added to it (if you had 3 boards):
   
       /usr/sbin/stlload -b 0 -i /usr/lib/stallion/cdk.sys
       /usr/sbin/stlload -b 1 -i /usr/lib/stallion/2681.sys
       /usr/sbin/stlload -b 2 -i /usr/lib/stallion/2681.sys
   
   The image files cdk.sys and 2681.sys are specific to the board types. The
   cdk.sys will only function correctly on an EasyConnection 8/64 board. Similarly
   the 2681.sys image fill only operate on ONboard, Brumby and Stallion boards.
   If you load the wrong image file into a board it will fail to start up, and
   of course the ports will not be operational!
   
   If you are using the modularized version of the driver you might want to put
   the insmod calls in the startup script as well (before the download lines
   obviously).
   
   
   3.2 USING THE SERIAL PORTS
   
   Once the driver is installed you will need to setup some device nodes to
   access the serial ports. The simplest method is to use the stallion utility
   "mkdevnods" script. It will automatically create device entries for Stallion
   boards. This will create the normal serial port devices as /dev/ttyE# where
   # is the port number starting from 0. A bank of 64 minor device numbers is
   allocated to each board, so the first port on the second board is port 64,
   etc. A set of callout type devices is also created. They are created as the
   devices /dev/cue# where # is the same as for the ttyE devices.
   
   For the most part the Stallion driver tries to emulate the standard PC system
   COM ports and the standard Linux serial driver. The idea is that you should
   be able to use Stallion board ports and COM ports interchangeably without
   modifying anything but the device name. Anything that doesn't work like that
   should be considered a bug in this driver!
   
   If you look at the driver code you will notice that it is fairly closely
   based on the Linux serial driver (linux/drivers/char/serial.c). This is
   intentional, obviously this is the easiest way to emulate its behavior!
   
   Since this driver tries to emulate the standard serial ports as much as
   possible, most system utilities should work as they do for the standard
   COM ports. Most importantly "stty" works as expected and "setserial" can
   also be used (excepting the ability to auto-configure the I/O and IRQ
   addresses of boards). Higher baud rates are supported in the usual fashion
   through setserial or using the CBAUDEX extensions. Note that the EasyIO and
   EasyConnection (all types) support at least 57600 and 115200 baud. The newer
   EasyConnection XP modules and new EasyIO boards support 230400 and 460800
   baud as well. The older boards including ONboard and Brumby support a
   maximum baud rate of 38400.
   
   If you are unfamiliar with how to use serial ports, then get the Serial-HOWTO
   by Greg Hankins. It will explain everything you need to know!
   
   
   
   4. NOTES
   
   You can use both drivers at once if you have a mix of board types installed
   in a system. However to do this you will need to change the major numbers
   used by one of the drivers. Currently both drivers use major numbers 24, 25
   and 28 for their devices. Change one driver to use some other major numbers,
   and then modify the mkdevnods script to make device nodes based on those new
   major numbers. For example, you could change the istallion.c driver to use
   major numbers 60, 61 and 62. You will also need to create device nodes with
   different names for the ports, for example ttyF# and cuf#.
   
   The original Stallion board is no longer supported by Stallion Technologies.
   Although it is known to work with the istallion driver.
   
   Finding a free physical memory address range can be a problem. The older
   boards like the Stallion and ONboard need large areas (64K or even 128K), so
   they can be very difficult to get into a system. If you have 16 Mb of RAM
   then you have no choice but to put them somewhere in the 640K -> 1Mb range.
   ONboards require 64K, so typically 0xd0000 is good, or 0xe0000 on some
   systems. If you have an original Stallion board, "V4.0" or Rev.O, then you
   need a 64K memory address space, so again 0xd0000 and 0xe0000 are good.
   Older Stallion boards are a much bigger problem. They need 128K of address
   space and must be on a 128K boundary. If you don't have a VGA card then
   0xc0000 might be usable - there is really no other place you can put them
   below 1Mb.
   
   Both the ONboard and old Stallion boards can use higher memory addresses as
   well, but you must have less than 16Mb of RAM to be able to use them. Usual
   high memory addresses used include 0xec0000 and 0xf00000.
   
   The Brumby boards only require 16Kb of address space, so you can usually
   squeeze them in somewhere. Common addresses are 0xc8000, 0xcc000, or in
   the 0xd0000 range. EasyConnection 8/64 boards are even better, they only
   require 4Kb of address space, again usually 0xc8000, 0xcc000 or 0xd0000
   are good.
   
   If you are using an EasyConnection 8/64-EI or ONboard/E then usually the
   0xd0000 or 0xe0000 ranges are the best options below 1Mb. If neither of
   them can be used then the high memory support to use the really high address
   ranges is the best option. Typically the 2Gb range is convenient for them,
   and gets them well out of the way.
   
   The ports of the EasyIO-8M board do not have DCD or DTR signals. So these
   ports cannot be used as real modem devices. Generally, when using these
   ports you should only use the cueX devices.
   
   The driver utility package contains a couple of very useful programs. One 
   is a serial port statistics collection and display program - very handy
   for solving serial port problems. The other is an extended option setting
   program that works with the intelligent boards.
   
   
   
   5. DISCLAIMER
   
   The information contained in this document is believed to be accurate and
   reliable. However, no responsibility is assumed by Stallion Technologies
   Pty. Ltd. for its use, nor any infringements of patents or other rights
   of third parties resulting from its use. Stallion Technologies reserves
   the right to modify the design of its products and will endeavour to change
   the information in manuals and accompanying documentation accordingly.
   

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