72 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
72 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
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<HTML>
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<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="LinuxDoc-Tools 0.9.21">
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<TITLE> Serial HOWTO: Configuring Overview</TITLE>
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<LINK HREF="Serial-HOWTO-8.html" REL=next>
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<LINK HREF="Serial-HOWTO-6.html" REL=previous>
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<LINK HREF="Serial-HOWTO.html#toc7" REL=contents>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY>
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-8.html">Next</A>
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-6.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO.html#toc7">Contents</A>
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<HR>
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<H2><A NAME="s7">7.</A> <A HREF="Serial-HOWTO.html#toc7">Configuring Overview</A></H2>
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<P>In most cases configuring is automatically taken care of and you
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have nothing to do. Linux should detect your serial ports, and load
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driver modules if needed. Then the driver should insure that IRQ and
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address space resources have been allocated. Finally, the application
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program which uses the serial port should set the port speed, etc.</P>
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<P>For any of this to work, serial support must either be compiled into
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the kernel (by you or by whoever compiled your kernel) or provided by
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modules that are loaded into the kernel when you start to use the
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serial port. In most cases, if it hasn't been compiled into the
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kernel, a module(s) will do the job and Linux should hopefully
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automatically find and load the correct modules.</P>
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<P>But if you have more than 4 (or perhaps 2) serial ports, then the kernel
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must be told this as it doesn't seem to do it automatically. See
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-15.html#nr_ports">Number of Serial Ports Supported</A>,
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-15.html#kernel_conf">Kernel Configuration</A> and.
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-15.html#ser_module">Serial Modules</A>.</P>
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<P>Once the proper support is in your kernel and modules, then The rest
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of the configuring of the serial port should happen automatically.
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This is done by the serial driver software often with help from your
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application software. But sometimes it doesn't get configured right
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and then you need to do it yourself. Or perhaps you need to configure
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it in a special way, etc. This HOWTO only covers configuration of the
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serial port itself and not the configuring of any devices attached to
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the port (such as a modem or printer).</P>
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<P>Resource allocation (locating the hardware or low-level configuring)
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is assigning each port an IO address, IRQ, and name (such as ttyS2).
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This IO-IRQ pair must be set in both the hardware and
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become known to the serial driver. We might just call this "io-irq"
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configuring for short. The "setserial" program is sometimes used to
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tell the driver io-irq info that an administrator has put in a
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configuration file or given as parameters to the setserial command.
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PnP methods, jumpers, etc, are used to set the IO and IRQ in the
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hardware. Details will be supplied later. If you need to configure
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but don't understand certain details it's easy to get into trouble.
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See
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-8.html#locate_port">Locating the Serial Port: IO address IRQs</A>
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-11.html#set_serial">What is Setserial</A></P>
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<P>The second part (high-level configuring) is assigning it a speed (such
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as 115.2k bits/sec), selecting flow control, etc. This is often
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initiated by communication programs such as wvdial, PPP, minicom,
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picocom or by getty (which you may run on the port so that others may
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log into your computer from an old-fashioned dumb terminal connected
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to the port). However you will need to tell these programs what speed
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you want, etc. by using a menu or a configuration file. This
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high-level configuring may also be done manually with the <CODE>stty</CODE>
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program. <CODE>stty</CODE> is also useful to view the current status if
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you're having problems. See the section
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-11.html#stty_">Stty</A></P>
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<HR>
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-8.html">Next</A>
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO-6.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="Serial-HOWTO.html#toc7">Contents</A>
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