Digiserver 16

[TalkingToes]

Hello to those more knowledgable,

-background
My work FINALLY went to all TCP/IP based printers for the antique Unix (yes a real old SCO server) system that is our backbone for everything (accounting, sales, payroll, dispatch, technicians, warehouse, etc). We used to use this DigiServer 16 to print to serial-based (as opposed to parallel port, or network capable (LPR)) printers around the buildings.

The RealPort drivers for an OS creates 16 'serial ports' that can be accessed locally to remote serial devices. Each of the Digiserver's ports has a 8 pin cable (like a network cable) connected to a DB9 serial plug somewhere else. (Common cat5 8-wire cable is sufficient to run in a building, but serial port's speed drops as distance increases) A serial modem or printer becomes a local device, not necessary to network them from the OS perspective ( be it SCO, HP-UX, Linux or Windows).

Physical serial ports cua0 (COM1) and cua1 (COM2) still work as always.

Once this driver is loaded, cua2-18 (COM5-COM21) (16 total) ports are available. The OS will see the remote devices as being locally connected.

-why
I have a itch to use this to connect to the serial ports of the few linux boxes, a managed 24 port switch, and an antique APC PDU. This is a way to access all serial ports at one IP address . I can also connect via a serial cable into it, and bounce back out another port, avoiding the network cables (and network switch) completely too.

-help
I found that RealPort v1.6 for Linux was the last for the 2.0 kernels. I cannot get it to compile.

Code: Select all

/usr/src/realport-1.6#  make all
(cd driver; make all)
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/realport-1.6/driver'
Makefile:133: depend.mk: No such file or directory
for i in *.[cS];\
do \
        gcc -MM -D__KERNEL__ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -I/usr/src/linux-2.0.39/include -I. -Iinclude -I../commoninc -DMODULE  -DSBINDIR=\"/usr/sbin\" -DDGRP_TRACER -DLINUX  -DDIGI_VERSION=\""1.6-2"\"  $i;\
done > depend.mk
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/realport-1.6/driver'
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/realport-1.6/driver'
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -I/usr/src/linux-2.0.39/include -I. -Iinclude -I../commoninc -DMODULE  -DSBINDIR=\"/usr/sbin\" -DDGRP_TRACER -DLINUX  -DDIGI_VERSION=\""1.6-2"\"   -c dgrp_driver.c -o dgrp_driver.o
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -I/usr/src/linux-2.0.39/include -I. -Iinclude -I../commoninc -DMODULE  -DSBINDIR=\"/usr/sbin\" -DDGRP_TRACER -DLINUX  -DDIGI_VERSION=\""1.6-2"\"   -c dgrp_proc.c -o dgrp_proc.o
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -I/usr/src/linux-2.0.39/include -I. -Iinclude -I../commoninc -DMODULE  -DSBINDIR=\"/usr/sbin\" -DDGRP_TRACER -DLINUX  -DDIGI_VERSION=\""1.6-2"\"   -c dgrp_specproc.c -o dgrp_specproc.o
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -I/usr/src/linux-2.0.39/include -I. -Iinclude -I../commoninc -DMODULE  -DSBINDIR=\"/usr/sbin\" -DDGRP_TRACER -DLINUX  -DDIGI_VERSION=\""1.6-2"\"   -c dgrp_net_ops.c -o dgrp_net_ops.o
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -I/usr/src/linux-2.0.39/include -I. -Iinclude -I../commoninc -DMODULE  -DSBINDIR=\"/usr/sbin\" -DDGRP_TRACER -DLINUX  -DDIGI_VERSION=\""1.6-2"\"   -c dgrp_mon_ops.c -o dgrp_mon_ops.o
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -I/usr/src/linux-2.0.39/include -I. -Iinclude -I../commoninc -DMODULE  -DSBINDIR=\"/usr/sbin\" -DDGRP_TRACER -DLINUX  -DDIGI_VERSION=\""1.6-2"\"   -c dgrp_common.c -o dgrp_common.o
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -I/usr/src/linux-2.0.39/include -I. -Iinclude -I../commoninc -DMODULE  -DSBINDIR=\"/usr/sbin\" -DDGRP_TRACER -DLINUX  -DDIGI_VERSION=\""1.6-2"\"   -c dgrp_tty.c -o dgrp_tty.o
dgrp_tty.c: In function `drp_param':
dgrp_tty.c:190: warning: implicit declaration of function `DGRP_TTY_MINOR'
dgrp_tty.c: In function `dgrp_tty_open':
dgrp_tty.c:751: warning: implicit declaration of function `DGRP_TTY_MAJOR'
dgrp_tty.c: In function `dgrp_tty_init':
dgrp_tty.c:3605: `TTY_DRIVER_NO_DEVFS' undeclared (first use this function)
dgrp_tty.c:3605: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
dgrp_tty.c:3605: for each function it appears in.)
make[1]: *** [dgrp_tty.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/realport-1.6/driver'
make: *** [build] Error 2
Press any key to continue...

Help to those that understand how to compile, I'm lost.

<a href='http://supportold.digi.com/support/drivers/linux/index-portserver.html' target='_blank'>http://supportold.digi.com/support/drivers...portserver.html</a>

Suggestions? Help? Release G is the last version, supporting 2.0.36 kernels.

Thank you,
TalkingToes in Seattle, WA, USA

[Lightning]

Some extra information about your compiling problem. This binary was made for the 2.0.36 kernel. But it is for this kernel on a RedHat 5.x system that ran a lib6 system. So even though it says it is for the 2.0.x kernel series it is not really designed for a lib5 system. So the key things to look for are a RPM file format and the showing of the 2.0.36 kernel that came with RedHat 5.x.
I suspect however by adding some additional header files from a RedHat system this application can probably be made to work. Unfortunately at the moment I don't have the time to tinker with it. But maybe someone else wants to take this on ?

[dingetje]

Try adding a line

Code: Select all

#define TTY_DRIVER_NO_DEVFS 0


in dgrp_tty.c before just after the last #include statement, or simply edit the offending line and remove it from the statement.
The 2.0 kernel does not support that option in <a href='http://www.kernel-api.org/docs/online/2.0.40/d4/d13/tty__driver_8h.html' target='_blank'>tty_driver.h</a>.

You may run in other compilation errors or the driver may fail at runtime, but its worth a try.

Good luck!