Token Ring (really)

Jay West

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Apr 6, 2012, 12:31:21 PM4/6/12

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I used to use the Token Ring driver in previous versions of FreeBSD (I think
it was the oli one I was using). I know that Token Ring support was removed
several releases ago. I again now have a somewhat pressing need for Token
Ring support on FreeBSD 9. The FreeBSD Token Ring Project seems to be
inactive from a look at the website.

Would anyone know of a PCI token ring card that perhaps the manufacturer
provides their own drivers for FreeBSD 9? All my google searches have come
up dry. Or, if any of the FreeBSD Token Ring Driver Project developers are
lurking around still, perhaps one of them would consider taking a donation
to make the old FreeBSD olicom drivers work on FreeBSD 9?

Jay West

EZwind.net

PO Box 460474

Saint Louis, MO 63146

Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000

Toll Free: (866) 343-2589

Fax: (314) 558-9284

<mailto:jw...@opensourceassociates.com> jw...@ezwind.net

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Jay West

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Apr 6, 2012, 1:30:48 PM4/6/12

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Well over 20 years experience with FreeBSD, and I was not aware of "Project
Evil" ;)

I don't know if my olicom card has NDIS versions of their driver for token
ring, but if so, that just might work! Still, getting the deprecated oltr
driver on FreeBSD9 would be awesome....

Jay West
EZwind.net
PO Box 460474
Saint Louis, MO 63146
Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000
Toll Free: (866) 343-2589
Fax: (314) 558-9284

jw...@ezwind.net

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mikel king

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Apr 6, 2012, 3:45:43 PM4/6/12

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On Apr 6, 2012, at 1:30 PM, Jay West wrote:

> Well over 20 years experience with FreeBSD, and I was not aware of "Project
> Evil" ;)
>
> I don't know if my olicom card has NDIS versions of their driver for token
> ring, but if so, that just might work! Still, getting the deprecated oltr
> driver on FreeBSD9 would be awesome....
>
> Jay West
> EZwind.net
> PO Box 460474
> Saint Louis, MO 63146
> Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000
> Toll Free: (866) 343-2589
> Fax: (314) 558-9284
> jw...@ezwind.net
>

Jay,

What is the last version of FreeBSD that your card was supported on? Perhaps it would be worth firing up that older version. I know it's a long shot but at least you would have access to the driver code that may actually still work in the current version.

It would certainly make an interesting story if you sort it all out.

Regards,
Mikel King
BSD News Network
http://bsdnews.net
skype: mikel.king
http://twitter.com/mikelking

Jay West

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Apr 6, 2012, 10:27:25 PM4/6/12

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Well, found the XP drivers for the card (it's a Madge Smart MK4 PCI adapter,
not olicom as I thought).

Ndisgen seemed to work fine

After kldloading the resulting module, ifconfig shows:
ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
ether 00:00:00:ee:ed:c6
media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX)
status: no carrier

It is connected though (via DB9, not RJ45). I don't see how you can specify
4mbps or 16mbps, attempting the oltr media types for example "UTP/4mbps"
says no such media type.

I am wondering if the ndisgen utility is only designed for ndis Ethernet
cards instead of my case - ndis token ring. :(

Jay West
EZwind.net
PO Box 460474
Saint Louis, MO 63146
Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000
Toll Free: (866) 343-2589
Fax: (314) 558-9284
jw...@ezwind.net

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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freeb...@freebsd.org

Adam Vande More

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Apr 6, 2012, 11:16:32 PM4/6/12

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On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 9:27 PM, Jay West <jw...@ezwind.net> wrote:

> Well, found the XP drivers for the card (it's a Madge Smart MK4 PCI
> adapter,
> not olicom as I thought).
>
> Ndisgen seemed to work fine
>
> After kldloading the resulting module, ifconfig shows:
> ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
> ether 00:00:00:ee:ed:c6
> media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX)
> status: no carrier
>
> It is connected though (via DB9, not RJ45). I don't see how you can specify
> 4mbps or 16mbps, attempting the oltr media types for example "UTP/4mbps"
> says no such media type.
>
> I am wondering if the ndisgen utility is only designed for ndis Ethernet
> cards instead of my case - ndis token ring. :(
>

It is still in the 7.x branch:
http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/stable/7/sys/contrib/dev/oltr/

Otherwise, it's time to abandon steamships for airplanes. Sounds like you
have a primed business opportunity just waiting to be exploited.

--
Adam Vande More

Jay West

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Apr 8, 2012, 10:41:17 AM4/8/12

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Adam wrote...

Otherwise, it's time to abandon steamships for airplanes. Sounds like you
have a primed business opportunity just waiting to be exploited.

-----------
Actually, this is for a historical re-creation project. Airplanes would be
entirely inappropriate for a historical display, so steamships it is. Last I
checked, there was no primed business opportunity in doing something for
non-profits (museums, etc.) :)

I guess I'll have to see how tough it would be to yank the TR code from 7x
and get it running under 9x. Probably above my skillset, but I'll have a
looksee.

J

Nikos Vassiliadis

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Apr 8, 2012, 7:03:48 PM4/8/12

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On 4/8/2012 4:41 PM, Jay West wrote:
> Adam wrote...
>
> Otherwise, it's time to abandon steamships for airplanes. Sounds like you
> have a primed business opportunity just waiting to be exploited.
>
> -----------
> Actually, this is for a historical re-creation project. Airplanes would be
> entirely inappropriate for a historical display, so steamships it is. Last I
> checked, there was no primed business opportunity in doing something for
> non-profits (museums, etc.) :)
>
> I guess I'll have to see how tough it would be to yank the TR code from 7x
> and get it running under 9x. Probably above my skillset, but I'll have a
> looksee.
>
> J
>

Hi,

You could try finding an "ethernet to token ring" translating bridge,
though I am not aware of the budget will need - or if you'll find one
anyways.

Just a thought,

Nikos

per...@pluto.rain.com

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Apr 9, 2012, 10:04:27 AM4/9/12

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"Jay West" <jw...@ezwind.net> wrote:

> this is for a historical re-creation project ...

>
> I guess I'll have to see how tough it would be to yank
> the TR code from 7x and get it running under 9x.

Might it not be both more historically accurate, and a great deal
easier, to just use the version of FreeBSD that corresponds to the
historical era being re-created?

Robert Huff

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Apr 9, 2012, 7:54:31 AM4/9/12

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per...@pluto.rain.com writes:

> Might it not be both more historically accurate, and a great deal
> easier, to just use the version of FreeBSD that corresponds to
> the historical era being re-created?

And skip feature, performance, and security improvements made
since?

Robert Huff

Jay West

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Apr 9, 2012, 9:42:22 AM4/9/12

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It was written....
-------------------

> Might it not be both more historically accurate, and a great deal
> easier, to just use the version of FreeBSD that corresponds to the
> historical era being re-created?

And skip feature, performance, and security improvements made since?

-------------------

Not in this case on the former, and the latter - agreed.

The real historical part and focus of the exhibit isn't the FreeBSD machine.
It's a dual bay HP2000 Timeshare BASIC machine. It has been restored to
pristine cosmetic and electrical running condition (2000/Access) and that's
the focus of the exhibit.

One neat feature of the HP2000, even though it was a dedicated basic
interpreter environment, it had the ability to submit jobs to HASP/MVS. MVS
could run the code and direct output back to files on the HP2000, output to
devices on that system, etc. It's a really neat add-on feature of the
display/project to include and demonstrate that functionality. Given that a
full blown VM/360 system isn't in the picture, we've used Hercules. One
issue is cobbling together some hardware glue to deal with the interface
between the HP and the "IBM", basically emulating a sync modem and 2780
device on the Hercules side. That is mostly within my skillset. The other
issue is that there needs to also be some terminal interaction on the "IBM"
side, so we have a 3174 establishment controller with some 3179 terms and a
3290 gas plasma 4-session display. The 3174 attaches to the host (Hercules)
via token ring. I had this all working perfectly with FreeBSD 7x, but when
upgrading FreeBSD we lost token ring support. I could stay on an older
version of FreeBSD, but then I am stuck with pretty old versions of Hercules
(there are problems with newer versions of Hercules compiling under older
versions of FreeBSD, some needed features are lacking in older versions of
Hercules, etc.). So now you have the gory details as to "why". Yes, there
are a few other possible ways to "skin this cat", but I have researched them
all and found various issues both subjective and objective with going those
alternate routes, hence my desire for native TR support.

So back to the topic at hand. I pulled the oltr code from 7x svn and dropped
it onto an 8x machine I had available for testing, added the requisites to
sys/conf/files.i386, and make buildkernel attempts to fly. It appears the
main reason that oltr was dropped at release 8 was that it had
IFF_NEEDSGIANT which has been deprecated for MP Safe. Additionally, some of
the functions in cpufunc.h (outbv and inbv) are no longer present in the
exact same form. Outbv and inbv I can probably easily adjust, but I'm out of
my league in the "ins & outs" of removing the need for giant locks. I
figured it wouldn't be as simple as just moving the code :) I'll beat my
head against it as time permits, thanks for any input.

Best,

J

Da Rock

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Apr 9, 2012, 10:02:31 AM4/9/12

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> my league in the "ins& outs" of removing the need for giant locks. I

> figured it wouldn't be as simple as just moving the code :) I'll beat my
> head against it as time permits, thanks for any input.

I've been following this thread with a kind of bizarre fascination (or
more accurately perhaps it should be the fascination of the bizarre?).
Perhaps you should put those questions to the hackers@ list? Or even net@?

Where is this exhibit? Is there somewhere I can follow your progress
with this interesting diorama? I'd be fascinated to see this in operation :)

Bill Tillman

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Apr 11, 2012, 10:33:05 AM4/11/12

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________________________________
From: Nikos Vassiliadis <nv...@gmx.com>
To: Jay West <jw...@ezwind.net>
Cc: 'Adam Vande More' <amvan...@gmail.com>; 'mikel king' <mikel...@olivent.com>; freebsd-...@freebsd.org
Sent: Sunday, April 8, 2012 7:03 PM

Subject: Re: Token Ring (really)

Hi,

Just a thought,

Sorry to jump in on this one so late but here is my 2 cents on this one:

Madge cards were all the rage back in 1996 thru 1999. I was IT Mgr for a
financial services company which ran token ring....ring in-ring out and pass
the MAU-e-wau-e pipe please. Back then, Madge cards ran $300 or more.
These days you can buy a 1000mbs ethernet card for $5. So I vote for
swapping out the NIC and get on with life.

Jay West

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Apr 11, 2012, 11:22:42 AM4/11/12

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There's some reasons that approach doesn't work, per IBM's protocol.

Jay West
EZwind.net
PO Box 460474
Saint Louis, MO 63146
Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000
Toll Free: (866) 343-2589
Fax: (314) 558-9284
jw...@ezwind.net

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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freeb...@freebsd.org