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5. 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.

Q:

I seem to be having troubles with Madge and RedHat 6.1

A:

Phil N pnewlon@toosan.com writes:
        

If you are interested, I have a Madge/RH6.1 system up and running. I had difficulty getting the adapter to get an address assignment from dhcp until I upgraded the Net Tools and pump packages to the latest (ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/rawhide/1.0/i386/RedHat/RPMS/net-tools-1.54-3.i386.rpm, ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/rawhide/1.0/i386/RedHat/RPMS/pump-0.7.8-1.i386.rpm). Static IP address assignment worked without upgrade of Net Tools.

Madge Card trconfig info (trconfig is Madge utility that is provided with driver source download)

Driver version:      2.31.0  
Driver ID:           MadgeLinux 2.31
Card:                Madge Smart 16/4 PCI Ringnode Mk2
PCI Info:            Bus 0 Device 15 Function 0
IO Base:             2400
IRQ:                 9

Madge driver is located at http://www.madge.com/software/tr_adap/linux/v231/source/msrc231.tgz Follow the instructions provided, worked perfectly

On Linux with a Kernel of 2.2.12-20 (I will be upgrading to 2.2.15-15 later today, I will update you if you'd like....)

- do modprobe mtok to make sure the module loads OK
- edit /etc/conf.modules and add 
        alias tr0 mtok
- edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-tr0
        DEVICE="tr0"
        IPADDR=""
        NETMASK=""
        ONBOOT="yes"
        BOOTPROTO="dhcp"

The system was a Compaq Deskpro EN with ethernet and token ring adapters.


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