Token-Ring mini-HOWTO

Mike Phillips

mikep@linuxtr.net

Tom Gall

tom_gall@vnet.ibm.com

Mike Eckhoff

Revision History
Revision 5.002002-01-23Revised by: mlp
Updated to reflect the current state of Token Ring with Linux
Revision 4.329 March 2000Revised by: tg
Brought up to date.
Revision 4.17 January 1998Revised by: me
v4.1 released by Mike

This howto is designed to help you get up and running using a Token Ring adaptor to access the network. Generally speaking Section 3 will tell you which driver you need based on the adaptor card you have.


Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Special Thanks
1.2. Copyright Information
1.3. Disclaimer
1.4. New Versions
1.5. Credits
1.6. Feedback
2. Hardware requirements
3. Which driver should I use?
3.1. Drivers/Adapter Specifics
3.1.1. Kernel Module Aliases and Parameters
3.1.2. IBMTR Driver
3.1.3. Olympic Driver
3.1.4. Lanstreamer Driver
3.1.5. 3Com 3C359 Driver
3.1.6. SysKonnect adapters
3.1.7. PCMCIA
3.1.8. Madge Supplied Drivers
3.1.9. Olicom Drivers
4. Known problems
5. VMWare and Token Ring
6. Commonly asked Questions
A. GNU Free Documentation License
A.1. 0. PREAMBLE
A.2. 1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
A.3. 2. VERBATIM COPYING
A.4. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
A.5. 4. MODIFICATIONS
A.6. 5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
A.7. 6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
A.8. 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
A.9. 8. TRANSLATION
A.10. 9. TERMINATION
A.11. 10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

1. Introduction

Welcome to the Linux Token Ring mini-howto. We hope you find the information contained within helpful.

If you have any problems with the drivers that are not talked about in this howto, feel free to email me at .

You may also wish to join the Linux on Token Ring Listserv by mailing with the body containing:

subscribe linux-tr
The latest and greatest information, drivers, patches, bug fixes, etc, etc can always be found at the Linux Token Project site.

1.1. Special Thanks

Thanks to Mark Swanson, Peter De Schrijver, David Morris, Paul Norton and everyone else who has contributed to the Token Ring code and drivers over the years.

Thanks also to the many people and companies who have provided hardware and technical documents to enable the drivers to be written in the first place.

Special Thanks to Mike Eckhoff the originator of this HOWTO, and Tom Gall for the previous version, and to Matthew Marsh for hosting the website and mailing list!

And, finally, thanks to all to subscribers to the linux-tr mailing list who have provided support, feedback, testing and thanks over the years. It wouldn't have been worth it without your continued support and gratitude.

1.2. Copyright Information

This documument is copyright (c) 1995-1998 by Michael Eckhoff, copyright(c) 2000 by Tom Gall and copyright (c) 2001 by Mike Phillips.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation, with no Invariant sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.

A copy of the license is included in Appendix A

If you have any question, please contact

1.3. Disclaimer

No liability for the contents of this document can be accepted. Use the concepts, examples and other content at your own risk. As this is a new edition of this document, there may be errors and inaccuracies, that may of course be damaging to your system. Proceed with caution, and although this is highly unlikely, the authors do not take any responsibility for that.

All copyrights are held by their respective owners, unless specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.

Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements.

You are strongly recommended to take a backup of your system before major installation and backups at regular intervals.

1.4. New Versions

The latest version of this document can always be found at Linux Token Ring Project under the Documentation section.

The latest version of this HOWTO will always be made available on the Linux Token Ring Project website, in a variety of formats:

1.5. Credits

In this version I have the pleasure of acknowleding:

IBM for providing hardware, technical documentation and technical support when the tech docs didn't quite seem enough.

Madge for providing their hardware to test with.

3Com for proving the technical documents to allow the 3c359 driver to be developed.

1.6. Feedback

Feedback is most certainly welcome for this document. Without your submissions and input, this document wouldn't exist. Please send your additions, comments and criticisms to the following email address: