Token-Ring mini-HOWTO
Mike Eckhoff, mike.e@emissary.aus-etc.com
v4.1, 7 January 1998
This howto is designed to help you install the kernel patch and also
try to point out some things to look for. I suggest that you at least
browse through all of this document before attempting to install any
part of the Token Ring driver for Linux.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Copyright and other Jazz
2. Hardware requirements
3. Software needed
4. Installation and setup
5. NetTools installation
6. Known problems
7. Questions and comments
8. Distribution Specific Installations
8.1 Slackware 96
8.2 RedHat 4.0+
______________________________________________________________________
Special Thanks
to Mark Swanson, Peter De Schrijver, David Morris, Paul Norton
and everyone else I may have missed who put in their time to
write and maintain this driver. Also to packrat for his support
of the linux-tr listserv.
1. Copyright and other Jazz
We do not guarantee that this howto will be accurate for your system.
Most people who have used it have had very good results in installing
Linux on a Token Ring network.
USE THIS HOWTO AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! ... We are not responsible for
any problems caused by using this howto.
If you have any problems with the driver that are not talked about in
this howto, feel free to email me at...
mike.e@emissary.aus-etc.com
You may also wish to join the Linux on Token Ring Listserv by mailing
majordomo@emissary.aus-etc.com with the body containing:
subscribe linux-tr
This document is copyright (c) 1995-1998 by Michael Eckhoff. You may
make copies of this document in whole or in part, in any medium
physical or electronic, as long as the copyright notice is retained on
all copies. Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged;
however, please notify me so that I can make sure that you have the
most current information available.
2. Hardware requirements
Make sure that you have a Token Ring card that is supported by this
driver. Currently the only cards that are supported are those that
use the Tropic chipset.
Cards that I personally know to work are:
� 3Com 3C619B Token Link
� 3Com 3C619C Token Link
� HyperRing Classic 16/4
� IBM Turbo 16/4 ISA adapter**
� IBM Token Ring Auto 16/4 ISA adapter
� IBM Token Ring Auto 16/4 adapter /A
� IBM Token Ring 16/4 adapter /A
� IBM Token Ring adapter /A
� IBM Token Ring adapter II (4 Megabit only)
� IBM 16/4 ISA Token Ring card (16bit)
� IBM 16/4 ISA Token Ring card (8bit)
� Madge Blue (100% IBM compatable)
All other 100% IBM compatable shared-ram adapters should also work
fine. Please let us know if you find differently.
It is recommended that you use 16KB Shared RAM for the time being.
Cards that may cause problems:
IBM Turbo 16/4 ISA adapter
This adapter will, in fact, work fine with the Linux token ring
driver. However, you MUST run the card in Auto 16/4
compatability mode. The simplest way to set this is to use the
LANAID disks sent with the card and run the command:
LANAIDC /FAST=AUTO16
You should then use LANAIDC or LANAID to configure the card accord�
ing to documentation.
Token-Ring Network 16/4 Adapter II
This adapter will NOT work. Do not confuse this card with the
IBM Token Ring adapter II (4mbit) which does. It is a
DMA/Busmaster adapter for ISA.
3Com TokenLink Velocity ISA
You may or may not get this one to work. I have had reports of
people running it without problems, and others who get errors
left and right.
PCI adapters
Currently, none of the IBM PCI adapters are supported.
IBM Auto LanStreamer 16/4 Token-Ring PCI Adapter
Currently not supported, but being worked on. This driver
should be Full Duplex as well when completed.
3. Software needed
NOTE:
If you are running a 2.0 distribution of Linux, please jump to
the distriubtion specific section of this document. The
following is mostly for 1.2 kernels.
This assumes you already have Linux up and running.
Obtain the Token Ring patch from:
<ftp://ftp.wayne.esu1.k12.ne.us/pub/Linux/Token-Ring/Token�
Ring.patch-1.2.0.gz>
Obtain the NetTools patched source from:
<ftp://ftp.wayne.esu1.k12.ne.us/pub/Linux/Token-Ring/net-
tools-1.2.0.patched.tar.gz>
Create a directory for the patches (such as /usr/src/patches) and
place the patches there.
mkdir /usr/src/patches central directory for patch storage
mkdir /usr/src/patches/token place TokenRing patch here
4. Installation and setup
NOTE:
These instructions are for patching a 1.2 kernel for token ring
support. If you have a 2.0 kernel, you only need to recompile
the current source and say ``yes'' or ``module'' when asked for
token ring support.
1. Install the Token Ring card into the system and configure it for
the settings that you want to use. It is a good idea to see if you
can use the card through DOS before trying to use it through Linux.
If it works in DOS, chances are, it will work in Linux with the
same settings. If you have a Plug and Play adapter, if possible,
lock the settings once you get them where they work.
2. Make a backup of your linux directory. This is very important in
case you need to totally remove the source of the patch from your
kernel and go back to your original code.
cd /usr/src
tar cvzhf linuxbak.tar.gz linux
3. Uncompress the TokenRing patch.
cd /usr/src/patches/token
gzip -d TokenRing.patch-1.2.0.gz
4. Modify your kernel with the TokenRing patch.
cd /usr/src/linux
patch -p1 < /usr/src/patches/token/TokenRing.patch-1.2.0
-or-
patch -p1 < <directory-of-patchfile>/TokenRing.patch-1.2.0
5. Search your kernel for any rejects from the patch and make changes
as necessary.
find . -name \*.rej -print
6. Search your kernel for the orig files and remove them.
find . -name \*.orig -print | xargs rm
7. Configure your kernel and remake.
NOTE:
Make sure your swap space is active if you have one.
cd /usr/src/linux
make config
(The patch should have added two lines to your config.in file for the
following options)
Token Ring support (CONFIG_TR) [y]
(and further down the list...)
IBM Tropic chipset based adaptor support (CONFIG_IBMTR) [y]
make dep
make clean
make zImage
8. Setup LILO.
First rename your /vmlinuz kernel to vmlinuz.old then copy the
kernel to /vmlinuz. On my system this would consist of copying
/usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage to /vmlinuz and editing
/etc/lilo.conf to boot that kernel.
Now from the prompt run ``lilo''.
9. You should now be able to reboot your system and use the Token Ring
card in your computer. Please check the distribution specifc
section for any extra configuration information.
5. NetTools installation
The NetTools package contains a lot of the basic utils that you will
use to communicate with network devices. This includes programs like
arp, rarp, route, ifconfig and netstat. Since these programs do not
know about Token Ring by default, you will need to add the NetTools
patch so these utilities can work more efficiently with the Token Ring
driver.
NOTICE:
The current version of NetTools for 1.2.x kernels is 1.2.0. If
you are running a 2.0 kernel, your nettools is most likely
already up to date. However, you can get the latest source
from:
<ftp://tapac.inka.de/pub/comp/Linux/networking/NetTools/>
1. (1) Copy and Untar the NetTools source into your source directory.
cp net-tools-1.2.0.patched.tar.gz /usr/src
tar -zxvof /usr/src/net-tools-1.2.0.tar.gz
2. (5) Make the net-tools files.
cd /usr/src/net
make install
6. Known problems
I personally have had very few problems with this driver. It has been
working perfectly for me for quite some time.
If you have any problems with the driver on a 1.2.x kernel, please
update to Linux 2.0. The current version, as of this writing, is
2.0.33. There have been many improvements to the token ring driver
since the 1.2 patches and most of them have not been ported back.
Also, you will not have to patch a Linux 2.0 kernel for token ring.
The source is already included. However, there are some test patches
of the code going into 2.1 available if you would like to use it.
7. Questions and comments
Q: Can the token ring driver be compiled as a module?
A: Yes, it can be -- and it works rather well. There is an extra
parameter that you can use when it is compiled as a module. If
you ever need to ``spoof'' software install programs, such as
the redhat boot disks, into configuring your token ring card as
an ethernet device (for NFS/FTP installs, etc), you can use the
``device'' parameter to force a device name other then tr0. You
will probably have problems if you try this with multiple
adapters. It is mostly there to get around a few
incompatabiliites. Ex.:
/sbin/insmod ibmtr device=eth0
Q: I keep getting an error code ``0011''. Whats up?
A: Make sure that your connection to the network is good or that
you have a loopback connector on your token ring card. This
message just means that it could not open the ring. 99.99% of
the times, it is just not plugged into one.
C: If you have a sound card in your machine, and it sits at IO
0x220, you may end up with a conflict with your token ring
adapter at 0xa20. If you notice that a supported adapter does
not seem to be working and you have a sound card, please try to
either set your token ring card to 0xa24 or move/remove your
sound card.
Also...
Here are some email messages that I have received about Token
Ring and Linux. In some of the messages, I have removed parts
that were not important to save space.
Q:
From: "Mr. Chuck Rickard" <chuck@gl.umbc.edu>
Subject: Re: Token Ring Kernel patch
I d/l'd the patch, applied it, and re-compiled. When booting it said,
"tr0: Can't assign device to adapter" and again for tr1. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Chuck Rickard
(chuck@umbc8.umbc.edu)
A:
From: David Morris <dwm@shell.portal.com>
When this is the only message issued, it means that the PIO
request for adapter information (see segment = inb(PIOaddr) in
ibmtr.c) was so out of range that there is no TR card at that IO
address.
Q:
From: Mike Glover <glover@credit.erin.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Token ring problems.
Thanks for responding. I was starting to thing that I posted incorrectly,
and I was about to post again. Anyway, the following clip is part of my
/var/adm/messages file from when I boot up.
May 2 10:03:14 linux kernel: tr0: Unable to assign adapter to device.
May 2 10:03:14 linux kernel: tr1: Unable to assign adapter to device.
The section, tr0: Unable to assign adapter device. is what kinda confuses
me. The documentation is slim at best so I didn't know what to do with
the message. I know I didn't assign any token ring information,
and I didn't know where to do it.
The hardware:
Its a PC clone (Dell OMNIPLEX 560 to be exact)
The token ring card is a Olicom 16/4 Adapter.
I have DOS token ring drivers and it snaps into the network, so there is
nothing wrong with the card. I think, I am just missing something really
small in the config on the Linux side.
A: The Olicom 16/4 Adapter does not use the Tropic Chipset. Try
using one of the cards that are listed at the top of the
HOWTO.
Q:
From: Mike Glover <glover@credit.erin.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Found an IBM card...
I found myself an IBM token ring card and I got a little further,
but still not luck. (I did change /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 ifconfig entry
from eth0 to tr0)
Anyway, here is part of the /var/adm/messages file:
May 2 16:23:07 linux kernel: IPX Portions Copyright (c) 1995 Caldera, Inc.
May 2 16:23:07 linux kernel: tr0: PIOaddr: a20 seg/intr: b8 mmio base:
000dc000 intr: 0
May 2 16:23:07 linux kernel: tr0: Channel ID string not found for PIOaddr: a20
May 2 16:23:07 linux kernel: tr0: Expected for ISA: 5049434f3631313039393020
May 2 16:23:07 linux kernel: tr0: found: 000902003021111000182000
May 2 16:23:07 linux kernel: tr0: Expected for MCA: 4d4152533633583435313820
May 2 16:23:07 linux kernel: tr0: Unable to assign adapter to device.
May 2 16:23:07 linux kernel: tr1: Unable to assign adapter to device.
May 2 16:23:07 linux kernel: PPP: version 0.2.7 (4 channels) NEW_TTY_DRIVERS
OPTIMIZE_FLAGS
Does this tell you anything. It tells me little.
A:
From: David Morris <dwm@shell.portal.com>
This message means either a memory conflict with the MMIO area
or a TR card which is not compatible with the driver (at least
the signature isn't known).
Q:
From: Mike Glover <glover@credit.erin.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Almost there...
The following sample is what I'm getting on my messages file:
May 3 14:50:24 linux kernel: tr0: now opening the board...
May 3 14:50:24 linux kernel: tr0: board opened...
May 3 15:11:47 linux kernel: tr0: Arrg. Transmitter busy for more than 50 msec.
Donald resets adapter, but resetting
May 3 15:11:47 linux kernel: the IBM tokenring adapter takes a long time.
It might not even help when the
May 3 15:11:47 linux kernel: ring is very busy, so we just wait a little longer
and hope for the best.
May 3 15:11:47 linux kernel: tr0: Arrg. Transmitter busy for more than 50 msec.
Donald resets adapter, but resetting
May 3 15:11:47 linux kernel: the IBM tokenring adapter takes a long time.
It might not even help when the
May 3 15:11:47 linux kernel: ring is very busy, so we just wait a little longer
and hope for the best.
May 3 15:11:47 linux kernel: tr0: Arrg. Transmitter busy for more than 50 msec.
Donald resets adapter, but resetting
The Arrg entry only comes when I telnet, rlogin or ftp to a remote
machine. Once that happens, the connection hangs big time. I took out all
the other hardware (which was 1 SCSI card) and tried running the card all
by itself. Same thing, so it eliminates hardware IRQ's from getting into
a yelling match. The following are the DIP switches on the card:
1 Up |
2 Down |
3 Down | According to the manual this sets the
4 Up | base address to CC000 Which is fine for
5 Up | my machine.
6 Down |
7 Down + This sets the IRQ to 2. Which is also fine
8 Down +
9 Up X Primary Lan adapter. Which it is.
10 Up = 16 KB shared RAM size. This OK?
11 Down =
12 Up # 16 Mbps Data rate.
I was wondering if it is in fact the dip switches, or the way I have
configured my route table and other network info.
ttfn,
Mike
A: The Arrg problem is pretty much taken care of in the 2.0
kernels. All of the patches have not been ported back to
1.2, and I doubt that they will be. If you get excessive
Arrg messages, do yourself a favour and move to Linux 2.0.
8. Distribution Specific Installations
8.1. Slackware 96
If you have not already ran ``netconfig'' on your system, do so now.
Setup your machine just as if it were on Ethernet.
Edit your /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 scripts to point to the tr0 device rather
than the eth0 device.
You should have a line that looks like
/sbin/ifconfig eth0 ${IPADDR} broadcast ${BROADCAST} netmask ${NETMASK}
Change this line to read
/sbin/ifconfig tr0 ${IPADDR} broadcast ${BROADCAST} netmask ${NETMASK}
8.2. RedHat 4.0+
The RedHat distribution of Linux has a wonderful Xwindows control
panel for configuring modules and devices. If you have added a token
ring adapter to a standard RedHat installation, there should already
be token ring support compiled in as a module. Try to:
modprobe ibmtr
and see what you come up with. Chances are, if you have a supported
adapter, you will be ready to go.
The easiest way to configure your interface would be to use the
control-panel. You will first want to go to the kernel module control
and instruct it to load a new network device for token ring. It
should then start to autoload the ibmtr driver on boot. You will then
want to jump over to network configuration and add a new device, tr,
and give it an ip address, etc.
You should then be able to restart and go with Linux and Token Ring on
RedHat 4.0+.
Please note that these RedHat instructions came from the top of my
head. I havn't had to modify any of my RedHat systems for quite some
time and am writing this from memory. Either way, they should be able
to get you where you need to go.