Linux Infrared HOWTO

Werner Heuser

Copyright  2000, 2001 by Werner Heuser


The Infrared-HOWTO (former IR-HOWTO) provides an introduction to Linux and
infrared devices and how to use the software provided by the Linux/IrDA
project. This package uses IrDA(TM) compliant standards. IrDA(TM) is an
industrial standard for infrared wireless communication, and most laptops
made after January 1996 are equipped with an IrDA(TM) compliant infrared
transceiver. Infrared ports let you communicate with printers, modems, fax
machines, LANs, and other laptops. Speed ranges from 2400bps to 4Mbps.

The Linux/IrDA stack supports IrLAP, IrLMP, IrIAS, IrIAP, IrLPT, IrCOMM,
IrOBEX, and IrLAN. Several of the protocols are implemented as both clients
and servers. There is also support for multiple IrLAP connections, via
several IrDA(TM) devices at once. The Linux/IrDA project started at the end
of 1997 and its status is still experimental, so please don't expect every
feature working straight. AFAIK Linux/IrDA is the _only_ open source IrDA
implementation currently available.

Remote Control (RC) via infrared is the aim of the Linux Infrared Remote
Control - LIRC project, and also described in this HOWTO.

Copyright (c) 2000 Werner Heuser. For all chapters 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 the Invariant Sections being "Preface" and
"Credits", with the Front-Cover Texts being "Linux Infrared HOWTO", and with
the Back-Cover Texts being the section "About the Document and the Author". A
copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free
Documentation License". 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
Preface
    1. About the Document and the Author
    2. Status of the Document
   
   
I. IrDA
    1. About the Linux/IrDA Project
        1.1. Project History
        1.2. Code History
       
       
    2. Getting Started
        2.1. Software
            2.1.1. IrDA-Utils
            2.1.2. openobex
            2.1.3. e-squirt
            2.1.4. IrNET for Linux-IrDA
            2.1.5. Java - IrDA Interface
           
           
        2.2. Kernel
            2.2.1. Preface
            2.2.2. IrDA Specific Parameters
            2.2.3. Current Kernel Patches
           
           
        2.3. Kernel Module Options
        2.4. Configuration
            2.4.1. Device Numbers
            2.4.2. Device Arrangement
            2.4.3. /etc/modules.conf
            2.4.4. /etc/irda
            2.4.5. BIOS Configuration
            2.4.6. Serial Port (setserial)
            2.4.7. Starting IrDA
           
           
       
       
    3. Specific Connections and IrDA - Protocols
        3.1. Stating the IrDA Stack
            3.1.1. SIR
            3.1.2. Dongle Connection - Infrared Adapters for the Serial Port
            3.1.3. Dongle Connection - Infrared Motherboard Adapter
            3.1.4. Fast InfraRed (FIR)
           
           
        3.2. Printer Connection - IrLPT, IrTTP, IrCOMM?
        3.3. LAN Connection - IrLAN
        3.4. HP NetBeamer Connection
        3.5. Palm III Connection - IrCOMM
        3.6. Linux Terminal on Palm (Handspring Visor) via IR
        3.7. Psion 5 Connection
        3.8. Connecting from Linux to WinCE
        3.9. Cellular Phone Connection
            3.9.1. Motorola Timeport GSM
            3.9.2. Ericsson
            3.9.3. SH888 Phonebook Tool
            3.9.4. NOKIA
            3.9.5. Siemens S25
            3.9.6. German e-plus
           
           
        3.10. Digital Camera Connection
        3.11. Window$9x/NT and Linux/IrDA
            3.11.1. Introduction
            3.11.2. Connection between Linux/IrDA and Window$95 IrDA(TM)
            3.11.3. Communication between Win98 and Linux
           
           
        3.12. Linux to Linux Connection
            3.12.1. Connection Methods
            3.12.2. Compression
           
           
        3.13. Multiple Instances
        3.14. Connection to Docking Station
        3.15. Connection to Keyboard
        3.16. Connection via Serial Cable
        3.17. Null Modem Cable Connection
        3.18. Peer-to-Peer Mode / Direct Mode
        3.19. Linux/IrDA with Toshiba Notebooks
        3.20. IrDA Card in a Desktop Computer
       
       
    4. Hardware Supported by Linux/IrDA
        4.1. Obtaining Information about the Infrared Port in Laptops
            4.1.1. SIR
            4.1.2. FIR
           
           
        4.2. Hardware Surveys
        4.3. Big Endian
        4.4. SMP
        4.5. IrDA Hardware
        4.6. IrDA and USB
        4.7. Linux/IrDA on PDAs
       
       
    5. Advanced Topics
        5.1. Troubleshooting
            5.1.1. General Information
            5.1.2. Troubleshooting Techniques
            5.1.3. PCI Device Numbers
            5.1.4. scanport
           
           
        5.2. Mailing List
        5.3. How to Make Infrared Light Visible
        5.4. Power Saving
        5.5. Beyond IrDA
            5.5.1. Extending Transmission Distance
            5.5.2. Upcoming Standards (Bluetooth and IrDA)
           
           
        5.6. IrDA Network Neighborhood
        5.7. Linux/IrDA and APM
        5.8. Performance Testing
        5.9. IrDA Protocols
            5.9.1. IrDA Stack
            5.9.2. Existing IrDA Protocol Implementations
           
           
        5.10. Known Bugs
        5.11. FAQ
       
       
   
   
II. Infrared Remote Control
    6. Introduction
    7. Linux Infrared Remote Control - LIRC
    8. Lego Mindstorm
    9. Serial Infrared Remote Controller
    10. Infrared Tools for the COREL Netwinder PC
    11. ir
    12. irmctl
    13. IRManager
    14. irXxD
    15. gmd
    16. Infrared Remote Control - IrDA
   
   
III. Appendix
    A. Credits
    B. Revision History
    C. Serial Infrared Port Sniffers
        C.1. Sniffer by Gerd Knorr
        C.2. sersniff
       
       
    D. Infrared Light and Eye Safety
    E. Copyrights, Disclaimer, Trademarks
        E.1. Disclaimer and Trademarks
        E.2. Copyrights
        E.3. GNU Free Documentation License - GFDL
            E.3.1. 0. PREAMBLE
            E.3.2. 1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
            E.3.3. 2. VERBATIM COPYING
            E.3.4. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
            E.3.5. 4. MODIFICATIONS
            E.3.6. 5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
            E.3.7. 6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
            E.3.8. 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
            E.3.9. 8. TRANSLATION
            E.3.10. 9. TERMINATION
            E.3.11. 10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
           
           
       
       
   
   

List of Figures
5-1. IrDA Stack

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preface

1. About the Document and the Author

                                      Better red, than dead.                
                                                           Unknown AuthorEss

This document is based on the [http://irda.sourceforge.net] How to use part
of the Linux/IrDA project homepage and the [http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/
Jean_Tourrilhes/IrDA/index.html] Linux/IrDA Tutorial by Jean Tourillhes. I
have also included material provided by the Linux/IrDA core team, the Linux/
IrDA mailing list and other sources.

The document is included in the [http://www.linuxdoc.org] LINUX DOCUMENTATION
PROJECT - LDP .

The latest version of this document is available at [http://mobilix.org/
howtos.html] MobiliX-HOWTOs. You may find my Linux-Mobile-Guide (the former
Laptop-HOWTO), the Linux-Ecology-HOWTO and the Linux-Medicine-HOWTO there
also.

Mathieu Arnold provides an earlier version of the [http://www.mat.cc/]
IR-HOWTO in French.

Please feel free to contact me for comments or questions about the HOWTO. I
know this material is not finished or perfect, but I hope you find it useful
anyway. For other questions and current information about Linux/IrDA please
ask in the Linux/IrDA mailing list as explained below.

[mailto:wehe@mobilix.org] <Werner Heuser>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Status of the Document

The latest kernel I used is 2.4.2 and the latest irda-utils version is
0.9.13. I tried to check all information but I don't have all the necessary
infrared hardware yet, so if something doesn't work for you, please don't
blame me.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                  Warning                                  |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Former kernel and irda-utils versions need a completely different setup.   |
|Since I don't recommend to use former versions, all references to these    |
|setups are removed from this document. You may find some hints in the      |
|chapter Code History.                                                      |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I have included all the changes to be in sync with the 2.4.x kernel series
and the latest Linux/IrDA development now. Therefore some testing and
proof-reading has still to be done. So please don't expect anything working
straight out of the box.

I. IrDA

Table of Contents
1. About the Linux/IrDA Project
    1.1. Project History
    1.2. Code History
   
   
2. Getting Started
    2.1. Software
        2.1.1. IrDA-Utils
            2.1.1.1. Compilation
            2.1.1.2. Precompiled Packages
            2.1.1.3. Contents of Linux/IrDA-Utils
           
           
        2.1.2. openobex
        2.1.3. e-squirt
        2.1.4. IrNET for Linux-IrDA
        2.1.5. Java - IrDA Interface
       
       
    2.2. Kernel
        2.2.1. Preface
        2.2.2. IrDA Specific Parameters
            2.2.2.1. IrDA subsystem support
            2.2.2.2. Device Drivers
           
           
        2.2.3. Current Kernel Patches
       
       
    2.3. Kernel Module Options
    2.4. Configuration
        2.4.1. Device Numbers
        2.4.2. Device Arrangement
        2.4.3. /etc/modules.conf
        2.4.4. /etc/irda
        2.4.5. BIOS Configuration
        2.4.6. Serial Port (setserial)
        2.4.7. Starting IrDA
       
       
   
   
3. Specific Connections and IrDA - Protocols
    3.1. Stating the IrDA Stack
        3.1.1. SIR
        3.1.2. Dongle Connection - Infrared Adapters for the Serial Port
        3.1.3. Dongle Connection - Infrared Motherboard Adapter
        3.1.4. Fast InfraRed (FIR)
       
       
    3.2. Printer Connection - IrLPT, IrTTP, IrCOMM?
    3.3. LAN Connection - IrLAN
    3.4. HP NetBeamer Connection
    3.5. Palm III Connection - IrCOMM
    3.6. Linux Terminal on Palm (Handspring Visor) via IR
    3.7. Psion 5 Connection
    3.8. Connecting from Linux to WinCE
    3.9. Cellular Phone Connection
        3.9.1. Motorola Timeport GSM
        3.9.2. Ericsson
        3.9.3. SH888 Phonebook Tool
        3.9.4. NOKIA
        3.9.5. Siemens S25
        3.9.6. German e-plus
       
       
    3.10. Digital Camera Connection
    3.11. Window$9x/NT and Linux/IrDA
        3.11.1. Introduction
        3.11.2. Connection between Linux/IrDA and Window$95 IrDA(TM)
        3.11.3. Communication between Win98 and Linux
       
       
    3.12. Linux to Linux Connection
        3.12.1. Connection Methods
        3.12.2. Compression
       
       
    3.13. Multiple Instances
    3.14. Connection to Docking Station
    3.15. Connection to Keyboard
    3.16. Connection via Serial Cable
    3.17. Null Modem Cable Connection
    3.18. Peer-to-Peer Mode / Direct Mode
    3.19. Linux/IrDA with Toshiba Notebooks
    3.20. IrDA Card in a Desktop Computer
   
   
4. Hardware Supported by Linux/IrDA
    4.1. Obtaining Information about the Infrared Port in Laptops
        4.1.1. SIR
        4.1.2. FIR
       
       
    4.2. Hardware Surveys
    4.3. Big Endian
    4.4. SMP
    4.5. IrDA Hardware
    4.6. IrDA and USB
    4.7. Linux/IrDA on PDAs
   
   
5. Advanced Topics
    5.1. Troubleshooting
        5.1.1. General Information
        5.1.2. Troubleshooting Techniques
        5.1.3. PCI Device Numbers
        5.1.4. scanport
       
       
    5.2. Mailing List
    5.3. How to Make Infrared Light Visible
    5.4. Power Saving
    5.5. Beyond IrDA
        5.5.1. Extending Transmission Distance
        5.5.2. Upcoming Standards (Bluetooth and IrDA)
       
       
    5.6. IrDA Network Neighborhood
    5.7. Linux/IrDA and APM
    5.8. Performance Testing
    5.9. IrDA Protocols
        5.9.1. IrDA Stack
        5.9.2. Existing IrDA Protocol Implementations
       
       
    5.10. Known Bugs
    5.11. FAQ
   
   

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1. About the Linux/IrDA Project

1.1. Project History

The project started at the end of 1997 with the name Linux/IrDA. Due to some
troubles with the name IrDA, which is trademarked by the Infrared Data
Association IrDA , the name was changed to Linux/IR. At the end of 1998 the
the relationship between both became better and the name was changed to Linux
/IrDA again. Since February 1999 the project is an official member of IrDA .

Companies and developers which are interested in joining these efforts should
contact the at Linux/IrDA Project or me at <wehe@mobilix.org>.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.2. Code History

The Linux/IrDA project has undertaken some changes in the program code, which
you should know to understand some possible confusions.

For 2.0.x kernels Linux/IrDA support worked in a totally other way (only
user-land programms) and is no longer supported by the Linux/IrDA project.
Since 2.1.131 and 2.2.0 it is part of the kernel.

Some caveats are sometimes caused by changes of the following parameters. I
hope I have got them alright now, they confused me sometimes, too. The new
style stuff works from 2.2.15 / 2.4.0.

 

*the major device number of the irda device changed from 61 to 161 (as far
    as I remember there was also a major number 60 around, too), see the list
    of current device numbers below
   
*the irmanager is obsolete now, its tasks are now achieved by irattach
   
*the device name /dev/ircomm_tty changed to /dev/ircomm-tty
   
*the device names /dev/irnine and /dev/ircomm_new are obsolet
   

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 2. Getting Started

2.1. Software

The commands provided by the irda-utils package are the basic set of tools to
get a working IrDA connection. The other tools (e-Squirt, IrNET, ..) are
optional. The programms don't have manpages yet. You may use my man pages
instead, see [http://mobilix.org/software/irda/] MobiliX - Software.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.1. IrDA-Utils

2.1.1.1. Compilation

 

*Use the latest source of irda-utils available at Linux/IrDA Project. Also
    recommended is the glibc library. You may find out the current version
    with ldd --version. The use of the older libc5 library may lead to
    compile errors.
   
*Untar the package with tar xvzf irda-utils<VERSION> . I recommend to do
    this in /usr/src.
   
*Do a make clean (not necessary if you compile the package for the first
    time).
   
*Do a make all to build the binaries.
   
*Do a make install, this brings all commands into the right place and
    installs some config files in /etc/irda.
   
*Sometimes, when you compile the IrDA stack or some various IrDA package,
    you may have the compiler complaining the things such as
    IRLMP_HINT_MASK_SET or IRDAPROTO_ULTRA are not defined. This is because
    of a mess related to kernel headers and the way most distributions deal
    with it. If you have the 2.4.X kernel source lying around, the fix is
    simple. Just copy the header irda.h from the kernel to your include
    directory cp /usr/src/linux/include/linux/irda.h /usr/include/linux
   

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

2.1.1.2. Precompiled Packages

NOKUBI Takatsugu provides an irda-utils Debian package . This package is part
of the Potato Debian release. Also Mandrake since 6.1, Redhat since 6.1 and
SuSE since 6.1 contain RPM packages of the irda-utils. Some caveat with
precompiled packages might be some incompatibilities between kernel version
and appropriate package version.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.1.3. Contents of Linux/IrDA-Utils

2.1.1.3.1. irattach

irattach uses the module set as parameter; it can be a specific FIR driver: 
irattach toshoboe or ircomm (and then it loads the module aliased as "irda0"
in /etc/modules.conf)

If you are one of the lucky people which have a FIR chipset that is
supported, then you don't need to use irattach anymore. Now you just have to
modprobe the driver.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.1.3.2. irdadump

A program that displays all the frames sent, and received on the infrared
link.

One advantage of implementing IrDA device drivers as network device drivers
is that you should be able to attach sniffers to the device (or actually the
packet type). That way, it is possible to use a really handy utility called
irdadump (instead of tcpdump). This will make debugging MUCH easier.
Linux-2.2 implements the BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter), so its possible to
filter out exactly the frames you want to see.

Note: You probably have to be root for using irdadump . CONFIG_PACKET has to
be enabled in the kernel. If compiled as a module you might load the module
manually. irdadump has been converted into a library, so it can be used from
GUI applications as well.

Here is a sample output of a small session between Linux and a Palm III. This
log shows that the local irobex layer is not responding, so the Palm III
sends a disc frame.
dagbnb /home/dagb/linux/irda-utils/irdadump/ # ./irdadump                          
                                                                                   
20:18:15.305711 xid:cmd:saddr=0x05c589 > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=0                  
20:18:15.385597 xid:cmd:saddr=0x05c589 > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=1                  
20:18:15.465568 xid:cmd:saddr=0x05c589 > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=2                  
20:18:15.545953 xid:cmd:saddr=0x05c589 > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=3                  
20:18:15.625574 xid:cmd:saddr=0x05c589 > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=4                  
20:18:15.705575 xid:cmd:saddr=0x05c589 > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=5                  
20:18:15.785601 xid:cmd:saddr=0x05c589 > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=255,info=Linux     
20:18:18.075526 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=0                 
20:18:18.225498 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=1                 
20:18:18.375495 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=2                 
20:18:18.526355 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=3                 
20:18:18.675614 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=4                 
20:18:18.676364 xid:rsp:saddr=0x05c589 > daddr=0xb50c14b,S=6,s=4                   
20:18:18.765506 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=5                 
20:18:18.927221 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=255,info=Palm III 
20:18:18.975796 snrm:cmd,ca=0xfe,pf=1                                              
20:18:18.976534 ua:rsp,ca=0x58,pf=1                                                
20:18:18.977145 ua:rsp,ca=0x58,pf=1                                                
20:18:19.585627 rr:rsp,ca=0x58,nr=0,pf=1                                           
20:18:19.585810 rr:rsp,ca=0x58,nr=0,pf=1                                           
20:18:19.606413 i:cmd,ca=0x58,nr=0,ns=0,pf=1                                       
20:18:19.606582 rr:rsp,ca=0x58,nr=1,pf=1                                           
20:18:19.627708 rr:cmd,ca=0x58,nr=0,pf=1                                           
20:18:19.627871 i:rsp,ca=0x58,nr=1,ns=0,pf=1                                       
20:18:19.650571 disc:cmd,ca=0x58,pf=1                                              
20:18:19.650736 ua:rsp,ca=0x58,pf=1                                                
20:18:21.165524 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=0                 
20:18:21.315608 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=1                 
20:18:21.315793 xid:rsp:saddr=0x05c589 > daddr=0xb50c14b,S=6,s=1                   
20:18:21.395499 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=2                 
20:18:21.545516 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=3                 
20:18:21.695500 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=4                 
20:18:21.845840 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=5                 
20:18:22.007222 xid:cmd:saddr=0xb50c14b > daddr=0xffffffff,S=6,s=255,info=Palm     
III                                                                                
20:18:22.056143 snrm:cmd,ca=0xfe,pf=1                                              
20:18:22.056310 ua:rsp,ca=0xc8,pf=1                                                
20:18:22.056381 ua:rsp,ca=0xc8,pf=1                                                
                                                                                   
37 pacckets received by filter                                                     
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.1.3.3. irdaping

Makes it possible to try and ping a remote device using IrDA test frames. Not
all devices implements support for test frames. This is a program similar to
ping(8). It sends IrDA test frames (added some userdata which contains the
frame number and the time the frame was sent). You can also change the size
of the frame by using the -s option. You must supply an IrDA device address,
and not an IP address. You have to be able to get that device address by
using irdadump.

Here is one output sample (pinging an ACTiSYS IR-100M):
dagbnb /home/dagb/linux/irda-utils/irdaping/ # ./irdaping 0xf7be8388         
IrDA ping (0xf7be8388): 32 bytes                                             
32 bytes from 0xf7be8388: irda_seq=0 time=102.466003 ms.                     
32 bytes from 0xf7be8388: irda_seq=1 time=102.202003 ms.                     
32 bytes from 0xf7be8388: irda_seq=2 time=102.170998 ms.                     
32 bytes from 0xf7be8388: irda_seq=3 time=101.633003 ms.                     
                                                                             
4 packets received by filter                                                 
 

From : Christian Gennerat I use an alias which does not use any parameter (in
$HOME/.bashrc): alias irping="irdaping \`grep daddr /proc/net/irda/discovery|
sed s/.*daddr://\`" It works fine when there is only one discovered client.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.1.3.4. irkbd

Implements support for the mouse and keyboard protocol as used by the Tekram
IR-660 infrared docking station.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.1.3.5. findchip

Tries to find out which FIR IrDA chipset your machine is using. Try out
findchip -v to check it out. For other methods to detect the chipset see
below.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.1.3.6. irsockets

A collection of programs which uses IrDA sockets.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.1.3.7. irpsion5

File transfer program for exchanging files with your Psion PDA.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.1.3.8. /etc/irda

Configuration files, e.g. contain the serial port of the SIR driver. For
first testing you should configure the SIR IrDA driver.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.2. openobex

The overall goal of the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/openobex/] OpenOBEX
project is to make an open source implementation of the Object Exchange
(OBEX) protocol. OBEX is a session protocol and can best be described as a
binary HTTP protocol. A typical application is the "beam" function of PalmOS.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.3. e-squirt

[http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/IrDA/index.html] e-Squirt is
a simple protocol for sending URLs over the IrDA medium. This allows for
interaction with CoolTown enabled devices.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.4. IrNET for Linux-IrDA

[http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/IrDA/index.html] IrNET is a
protocol allowing to carry TCP/IP traffic between two IrDA peers in an
efficient fashion. It is a thin layer, passing PPP packets in a IrTTP socket.
It uses PPP in synchronous mode for efficiency, and offers lots of
flexibility and various features. The main part of IrNET in included in
kernel 2.4.x, and a user-space daemon (to automate connections) is available
on the web page.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1.5. Java - IrDA Interface

This [http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/IrDA/index.html] Java
Infrared Socket API provides a way of communicating through infrared medium
on a linux machine using Java. Thus, Java application developers can develop
applications involving infrared access much easily. The API is very similar
to java.net.Socket API and has been implemented using the Linux infrared
stack. Both connection oriented streams (IrSocket and IrServerSocket) and
connectionless Ultra (UltraSocket, UltraPacket) interfaces are available.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.2. Kernel

2.2.1. Preface

Please read the Kernel-HOWTO to get more information about the compilation
process. Get the latest patches from http://irda.sourceforge.net or the Linux
/IrDA mailing list archiv.

You'll find the Linux/IrDA code in:

/usr/src/linux/net/irda (protocol stuff)

/usr/src/linux/drivers/net/irda (device drivers)

/usr/src/linux/include/net/irda (header files)

General Parameters Make sure you use kernel 2.4.x sources. If unsure about
your kernel version try uname -r.

Get the latest kernel patch from the Linux/IrDA project . Or from the Alan
Cox kernel series . Put it into /usr/src or where else your kernel sources
live and apply something like (replace patch-2_2.0-irdaXXX with the actual
file name):
cd /usr/src                                                                  
tar xvzf patch-2_2.0-irdaXXX.tar.gz                                          
cd linux                                                                     
patch -p1 -l < ../patch-2_2.0-irdaXXX                                        
For latest drivers maybe experimental support has to be enabled
CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL.

Enable sysctl in "General Setup" CONFIG_SYSCTL.

You should have proc file system support CONFIG_PROC_FS.

Also serial support for the SIR features CONFIG_SERIAL.

I am not sure whether there has to be printer support for using a printer
with Linux/IrDA CONFIG_PRINTER. But I assume this feature is not necessary.

Networking support _must_ be enabled CONFIG_NET.

Make sure you have module support CONFIG_MODULES in your kernel! Test it e.g.
with lsmod.

Also kerneld support CONFIG_KERNELD. But kmod (CONFIG_KMOD) also works. A
monolithic kernel seems to work, too. But modules are highly recommended!

To use irdadump you probably have to set CONFIG_PACKET.

If you only apply the Linux/IrDA patch, you should not have to do a make
clean, so that should save you some time. I suggest you do something like
this:

make dep && make all && make modules && make install && make modules_install
If you get really strange errors, then try to rebuild from scratch after a
make clean.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.2.2. IrDA Specific Parameters

The following is from ../linux-2.4.3/Documentation/Configure.help Please
consult the latest available kernel documentation for current information and
new drivers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.2.2.1. IrDA subsystem support

CONFIG_IRDA Say Y here if you want to build support for the IrDA (TM)
protocols. The Infrared Data Associations (tm) specifies standards for
wireless infrared communication and is supported by most laptops and PDA's.

To use Linux support for the IrDA (tm) protocols, you will also need some
user-space utilities like the irmanager and probably irattach as well. For
more information, see the file Documentation/networking/irda.txt. You also
want to read the IR-HOWTO, available at http://www.linuxdoc.org/docs.html#
howto .

This support is also available as a module called irda.o. If you want to
compile it as a module, say M here and read Documentation/modules.txt.

IrDA Cache last LSAP

CONFIG_IRDA_CACHE_LAST_LSAP Say Y here if you want IrLMP to cache the last
LSAP used. This makes sense since most frames will be sent/received on the
same connection. Enabling this option will save a hash-lookup per frame.

If unsure, say Y.

IrDA Fast RR's

CONFIG_IRDA_FAST_RR Say Y here is you want IrLAP to send fast RR (Receive
Ready) frames when acting as a primary station. This will make IrLAP send out
a RR frame immediately when receiving a frame if its own transmit queue is
currently empty. This will give a lot of speed improvement when receiving
much data since the secondary station will not have to wait the max. turn
around time before it is allowed to transmit the next time. If the transmit
queue of the secondary is also empty the primary will back off waiting longer
for sending out the RR frame until the timeout reaches the normal value.
Enabling this option will make the IR-diode burn more power and thus reduce
your battery life.

If unsure, say N.

IrDA Debug

CONFIG_IRDA_DEBUG Say Y here if you want the IrDA subsystem to write debug
information to your syslog. You can change the debug level in /proc/sys/net/
irda/debug

If unsure, say Y (since it makes it easier to find the bugs).

IrLAP Compression support

CONFIG_IRDA_COMPRESSION Compression is _not_ part of the IrDA(tm) protocol
specification, but it's working great! Linux is the first to try out
compression support at the IrLAP layer. This means that you will only benefit
from compression if you are running a Linux <-> Linux configuration.

If you say Y here, you also need to say Y or M to a compression protocol
below.

IrLAP Deflate Compression Protocol (EXPERIMENTAL)

CONFIG_IRDA_DEFLATE Say Y here if you want to build support for the Deflate
compression protocol. The deflate compression (GZIP) is exactly the same as
the one used by the PPP protocol.

If you want to compile this compression support as a module, say M here and
read Documentation/modules.txt. The module will be called irda_deflate.o.

IrLAN Protocol

CONFIG_IRLAN Say Y here if you want to build support for the IrLAN protocol.
If you want to compile it as a module (irlan.o), say M here and read
Documentation/modules.txt. IrLAN emulates an Ethernet and makes it possible
to put up a wireless LAN using infrared beams.

The IrLAN protocol can be used to talk with infrared access points like the
HP NetbeamIR, or the ESI JetEye NET. You can also connect to another Linux
machine running the IrLAN protocol for ad-hoc networking!

IrCOMM Protocol

CONFIG_IRCOMM Say Y here if you want to build support for the IrCOMM
protocol. If you want to compile it as a module (you will get ircomm.o and 
ircomm-tty.o), say M here and read Documentation/modules.txt. IrCOMM
implements serial port emulation, and makes it possible to use all existing
applications that understands TTY's with an infrared link. Thus you should be
able to use application like PPP, minicom and others. Enabling this option
will create two modules called ircomm and ircomm-tty.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.2.2.2. Device Drivers

IrTTY IrDA Device Driver

CONFIG_IRTTY_SIR Say Y here if you want to build support for the IrTTY line
discipline. If you want to compile it as a module (irtty.o), say M here and
read Documentation/modules.txt. IrTTY makes it possible to use Linux's own
serial driver for all IrDA ports that are 16550 compatible. Most IrDA chips
are 16550 compatible so you should probably say Y to this option. Using IrTTY
will however limit the speed of the connection to 115200 bps (IrDA SIR mode)

If unsure, say Y.

IrPORT IrDA Device Driver

CONFIG_IRPORT_SIR Say Y here if you want to build support for the IrPORT IrDA
device driver. If you want to compile it as a module (irport.o), say M here
and read Documentation/modules.txt. IrPORT can be used instead of IrTTY and
sometimes this can be better. One example is if your IrDA port does not have
echo-canceling, which will work OK with IrPORT since this driver is working
in half-duplex mode only. You don't need to use irattach with IrPORT, but you
just insert it the same way as FIR drivers (insmod irport io=0x3e8 irq=11).
Notice that IrPORT is a SIR device driver which means that speed is limited
to 115200 bps.

If unsure, say Y.

Winbond W83977AF IrDA Device Driver

CONFIG_WINBOND_FIR Say Y here if you want to build IrDA support for the
Winbond W83977AF super-io chipset. This driver should be used for the IrDA
chipset in the Corel NetWinder. The driver supports SIR, MIR and FIR (4Mbps)
speeds.

If you want to compile it as a module, say M here and read Documentation/
modules.txt. The module will be called w83977af_ir.o.

NSC PC87108 IrDA Device Driver

CONFIG_NSC_FIR Say Y here if you want to build support for the NSC PC87108
and PC87338 IrDA chipsets. This driver supports SIR, MIR and FIR (4Mbps)
speeds.

If you want to compile it as a module, say M here and read Documentation/
modules.txt. The module will be called nsc-ircc.o.

Toshiba Type-O IR Port Device Driver

CONFIG_TOSHIBA_FIR Say Y here if you want to build support for the Toshiba
Type-O IR chipset. This chipset is used by the Toshiba Libretto 100CT, and
many more laptops. If you want to compile it as a module, say M here and read
Documentation/modules.txt. The module will be called toshoboe.o.

SMC IrCC (Experimental)

CONFIG_SMC_IRCC_FIR Say Y here if you want to build support for the SMC
Infrared Communications Controller. It is used in the Fujitsu Lifebook 635t
and Sony PCG-505TX. If you want to compile it as a module, say M here and
read Documentation/modules.txt. The module will be called smc-ircc.o.

ALi M5123 FIR Controller Driver (Experimental)

CONFIG_ALI_FIR Say Y here if you want to build support for the ALi M5123 FIR
Controller. The ALi M5123 FIR Controller is embedded in ALi M1543C, M1535,
M1535D, M1535+, M1535D Sourth Bridge. This driver supports SIR, MIR and FIR
(4Mbps) speeds.

If you want to compile it as a module, say M here and read Documentation/
modules.txt. The module will be called ali-ircc.o.

Serial dongle support

CONFIG_DONGLE Say Y here if you have an infrared device that connects to your
computer's serial port. These devices are called dongles. Then say Y or M to
the driver for your particular dongle below.

Note that the answer to this question won't directly affect the kernel:
saying N will just cause this configure script to skip all

ESI JetEye PC Dongle

CONFIG_ESI_DONGLE Say Y here if you want to build support for the Extended
Systems JetEye PC dongle. If you want to compile it as a module, say M here
and read Documentation/modules.txt. The ESI dongle attaches to the normal
9-pin serial port connector, and can currently only be used by IrTTY. To
activate support for ESI dongles you will have to start irattach like this: 
irattach -d esi.

ACTiSYS IR-220L and IR220L+ dongle

CONFIG_ACTISYS_DONGLE Say Y here if you want to build support for the ACTiSYS
IR-220L and IR220L+ dongles. If you want to compile it as a module, say M
here and read Documentation/modules.txt. The ACTiSYS dongles attaches to the
normal 9-pin serial port connector, and can currently only be used by IrTTY.
To activate support for ACTiSYS dongles you will have to start irattach like
this: irattach -d actisys or irattach -d actisys+.

Tekram IrMate 210B dongle

CONFIG_TEKRAM_DONGLE Say Y here if you want to build support for the Tekram
IrMate 210B dongle. If you want to compile it as a module, say M here and
read Documentation/modules.txt. The Tekram dongle attaches to the normal
9-pin serial port connector, and can currently only be used by IrTTY. To
activate support for Tekram dongles you will have to start irattach like
this: irattach -d tekram.

Greenwich GIrBIL dongle

CONFIG_GIRBIL_DONGLE Say Y here if you want to build support for the
Greenwich GIrBIL dongle. If you want to compile it as a module, say M here
and read Documentation/modules.txt. The Greenwich dongle attaches to the
normal 9-pin serial port connector, and can currently only be used by IrTTY.
To activate support for Greenwich dongles you will have to insert irattach -d
girbil in the /etc/irda/drivers script.

Parallax Litelink dongle

CONFIG_LITELINK_DONGLE Say Y here if you want to build support for the
Parallax Litelink dongle. If you want to compile it as a module, say M here
and read Documentation/modules.txt. The Parallax dongle attaches to the
normal 9-pin serial port connector, and can currently only be used by IrTTY.
To activate support for Parallax dongles you will have to start irattach like
this irattach -d litelink.

Old Belkin dongle

CONFIG_OLD_BELKIN_DONGLE Say Y here if you want to build support for the
Adaptec Airport 1000 and 2000 dongles. If you want to compile it as a module,
say M here and read Documentation/modules.txt. The module will be called
old_belkin.o. Some information is contained in the comments at the top of
drivers/net/irda/old_belkin.c.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.2.3. Current Kernel Patches

Note: donauboe is a new version of toshoboe better FIR support and
compatibility with Donauoboe chip http://libxg.free.fr/lib-irda.html

For USB dongle patch see Linux/IrDA mailing list archiv.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.3. Kernel Module Options

This survey of module options was generated with the modinfo command.

 
actisys.o                                                                    
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no> - Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>               
ACTiSYS IR-220L and IR-220L+ dongle driver                                   
                                                                             
ali-ircc.o                                                                   
Benjamin Kong <benjamin_kong@ali.com.tw>                                     
ALi FIR Controller Driver                                                    
io int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "Base I/O addresses"            
irq int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "IRQ lines"                    
dma int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "DMA channels"                 
                                                                             
esi.o                                                                        
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
Extended Systems JetEye PC dongle driver                                     
                                                                             
girbil.o                                                                     
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
Greenwich GIrBIL dongle driver                                               
                                                                             
irport.o                                                                     
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
Half duplex serial driver for IrDA SIR mode                                  
io int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "Base I/O adresses"             
irq int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "IRQ lines"                    
                                                                             
irtty.o                                                                      
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
IrDA TTY device driver                                                       
qos_mtt_bits int, description "Minimum Turn Time"                            
                                                                             
litelink.o                                                                   
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
Parallax Litelink dongle driver                                              
                                                                             
nsc-ircc.o                                                                   
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
NSC IrDA Device Driver                                                       
qos_mtt_bits int, description "Minimum Turn Time"                            
io int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "Base I/O addresses"            
irq int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "IRQ lines"                    
dma int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "DMA channels"                 
dongle_id int, description "Type-id of used dongle"                          
                                                                             
old_belkin.o                                                                 
Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>                                              
Belkin (old) SmartBeam dongle driver                                         
                                                                             
smc-ircc.o                                                                   
Thomas Davis <tadavis@jps.net>                                               
SMC IrCC controller driver                                                   
ircc_dma int, description "DMA channel"                                      
ircc_irq int, description "IRQ line"                                         
                                                                             
tekram.o                                                                     
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
Tekram IrMate IR-210B dongle driver                                          
                                                                             
toshoboe.o                                                                   
James McKenzie <james@fishsoup.dhs.org>                                      
Toshiba OBOE IrDA Device Driver                                              
max_baud int                                                                 
                                                                             
w83977af_ir.o                                                                
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
Winbond W83977AF IrDA Device Driver                                          
qos_mtt_bits int, description "Mimimum Turn Time"                            
io int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "Base I/O addresses"            
irq int array (min = 1, max = 4), description "IRQ lines"                    
                                                                             
irda.o                                                                       
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
The Linux IrDA Protocol Subsystem                                            
irda_debug_R07c03e02 long                                                    
                                                                             
irlan.o                                                                      
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
The Linux IrDA LAN protocol                                                  
eth int, description "Name devices ethX (0) or irlanX (1)"                   
access int, description "Access type DIRECT=1, PEER=2, HOSTED=3"             
                                                                             
ircomm-tty.o                                                                 
Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>                                                 
IrCOMM serial TTY driver                                                     
                                                                             
ircomm.o                                                                     
Dag Brattli <dag@brattli.net>                                                
IrCOMM protocol                                                              
                                                                             
irnet.o                                                                      
<none>                                                                       
<none>                                                                       
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.4. Configuration

2.4.1. Device Numbers

 
mknod /dev/ircomm0 c 161 0                                                   
mknod /dev/ircomm1 c 161 1                                                   
mknod /dev/irlpt0 c 161 16                                                   
mknod /dev/irlpt1 c 161 17                                                   
mknod /dev/irnet c 10 187                                                    
chmod 666 /dev/ir*                                                           
There might be some other device number necessary if you want to use the 
irkbd features. You may find the latest device numbers in ../src/linux/
Documentation/devices.txt.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.4.2. Device Arrangement

First you should put your IrDA devices in range. Though it might be possible
that the Linux/IrDA service detects every new device automagically I only
have good experience with the devices in range during the configuration
process.

Keep your infrared devices together in a range below one meter and an angle
of 30 degree. There has to be a direct line of sight between them. If this is
not possible, you may use a mirror (an unused M$ CD should work quite good).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.4.3. /etc/modules.conf

Add the following lines to your /etc/conf.modules file:
# IrDA over a normal serial port, or a serial port compatible IrDA port       
alias tty-ldisc-11 irtty                                                      
# IrCOMM (for printing, PPP, Minicom etc)                                     
alias char-major-161 ircomm-tty     # if you want IrCOMM support              
# IRLAN                                                                       
alias irlan0 irlan                                                            
# To be able to attach some serial dongles                                    
# These values are hard-coded in irattach (not instance order)                
alias irda-dongle-0 tekram          # Tekram IrMate IR-210B                   
alias irda-dongle-1 esi             # ESI JetEye                              
alias irda-dongle-2 actisys         # Actisys IR-220L                         
alias irda-dongle-3 actisys         # Actisys IR-220L+                        
alias irda-dongle-4 girbil          # Greenwich GIrBIL                        
alias irda-dongle-5 litelink        # Parallax LiteLink                       
alias irda-dongle-6 airport         # Adaptec Airport 1000 and 2000           
# To use the FIR driver. This applies only to the specific device!!!          
#options nsc-ircc dongle_id=0x09        # NSC driver on a IBM Thinkpad laptop 
#options nsc-ircc dongle_id=0x08        # HP Omnibook 6000                    
#alias irda0 nsc-ircc                                                         
#alias irda0 smc-ircc                                                         
# IrNET module...                                                             
alias char-major-10-187 irnet       # Official allocation of IrNET            
Then do a depmod -a to update, and then all IrDA modules should be
automagically loaded when you need them. Note for testing reasons you may
load them manually, but please make sure not to load them twice. There might
be some other entries necessary, if you want to use the irkbd features or an
USB dongle. A template file is included into the irda-utils package.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.4.4. /etc/irda

Have a look into the files in /etc/irda. Edit them to reflect your setup.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.4.5. BIOS Configuration

Make sure your infrared port is enabled in the BIOS and check what interrupt
and port address it uses. With some laptops it seems necessary to have
Window$x installed to be able to set BIOS parameters.

I have got reports, that connected to a docking station the infrared port was
disabled.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.4.6. Serial Port (setserial)

To avoid some conflicts with serial devices you should do setserial /dev/
ttyS1 uart none. Choose the ttySx according to your SIR port. Hint: dmesg |
grep tty.

From Florian Lohoff You should also set "port 0x0 irq 0" otherwise you will
see interesting effects if there is suddenly a different S1 e.g. by inserting
a modem PCMCIA card. The serial driver will then touch the OLD ports without
having acquired those which will cause the irda stuff to die/hang. This is a
bug i havent been able to find in the serial driver but it definitly exists
(Put a printk into the serial_out serial_in stuff).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.4.7. Starting IrDA

Most important, you must sync your disks!!! Maybe you have to reboot your
machine. Have you read the disclaimer?

There are three sorts of low level drivers: SIR, dongle and FIR. To start
with Linux/IrDA I recommend to use the SIR method.

Load the modules modprobe irda irtty. irattach /dev/ttyS1 -s 1 to attach the
IrDA device to the IrDA services. Check lsmod and dmesg.

irdadump should show all available IrDA devices in range now. Hint: If you
are connecting different Linux boxes, you may use hostname YOUR_HOSTNAME to
set a unique hostname for each computer.

On the "server" side do pppd /dev/ircomm0 LOCAL_IP:REMOTE_IP On the "client"
side do pppd /dev/ircomm0 .

You may now test the connection with ping. And use all sorts of networking
connections (ssh, NFS, ...) now.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 3. Specific Connections and IrDA - Protocols

3.1. Stating the IrDA Stack

There are three sorts of low level drivers: SIR, dongle and FIR. If the right
driver is detected by the kernel you get a message like:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.1.1. SIR

 

*Try to find out which serial port is used by the IR device. You may do so
    by watching the output of dmesg. If serial support is modularized do an 
    modprobe serial first. Look for an entry like:
    Serial driver version 4.25 with no serial options enabled                
    ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A     #first serial port /dev/ttyS0 
    ttyS01 at 0x3000 (irq = 10) is a 16550A    #e.g. infrared port           
    ttyS02 at 0x0300 (irq = 3) is a 16550A     #e.g. PCMCIA modem port       
    If this is not the case, you either don't have infrared support enabled
    in the BIOS or the SIR mode of your infrared device is not detected by
    the kernel. Currently I know only two laptop models with this effect, the
    HP OmniBook 800 and the Toshiba Libretto models. I am not sure whether
    PnP support effects the detection of the IR port. If you are unsure try
    it out and let me know the results. Maybe you can use FIR mode if SIR
    doesn't work.
   
*In some situations you may have to use setserial /dev/ttyS<0-2> port
    0xNNNN irq M to set the values for your infrared serial port, especially
    if the infrared port is a separate serial line. You usually don't need to
    change the values! For further information look into the FAQ section
    below.
   
*If you don't use kerneld or kmod insert the irda module with modprobe
    irda.
   
*Do lsmod. It should show the modules irda and irtty now.
   
*A look into /var/log/messages should show the entry "Serial connection
    established" now.
   
*Give irattach some time, e.g. seven seconds, to detect other IR devices.
    Then watch the output from the kernel that you will hopefully get in /var
    /log/messages. It should look like the following (I removed some lines,
    which were not related to Linux/IrDA):
    Jan  2 12:57:26 japh kernel: ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A             
    Jan  2 12:57:26 japh kernel: ttyS02 at 0x03e8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A             
    Jan  2 12:57:26 japh kernel: Linux Support for the IrDA (tm) protocols (Dag Bra 
    ttli)                                                                           
    Jan  2 12:59:09 japh syslog: executing: 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/irda/discovery' 
    Jan  2 12:59:09 japh syslog: Setting discovery to 1 exited with status 1        
    Jan  2 12:59:09 japh syslog: + 0.1 Fri Jul 25 11:45:26 1997 Dag Brattli         
    Jan  2 12:59:09 japh syslog: + 0.1 Fri Jul 25 11:45:26 1997 Dag Brattli         
    Jan  2 12:59:09 japh syslog: Serial connection established.                     
    Jan  2 12:59:09 japh kernel: IrDA irda_device irda0 registered.                 
    Jan  2 13:01:22 japh syslog: executing: './drivers start '                      
    Jan  2 13:01:22 japh syslog: Serial connection established.                     
    Jan  2 13:01:42 japh syslogd: Printing partial message                          
    Jan  2 13:01:42 japh 0.1 Fri Jul 25 11:45:26 1997 Dag Brattli                   
    Jan  2 13:02:49 japh kernel: IrDA Discovered: japh                              
    Jan  2 13:02:49 japh kernel:     Services: Computer                             
     
   
*Even more information you can get with cat /proc/net/irda/discovery .
   

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

3.1.2. Dongle Connection - Infrared Adapters for the Serial Port

The currently supported dongles are the Extended Systems Inc. ESI-9680
JetEye, the Tekram IRmate 210B, the ACTiSYS IR220L and 220L+, the Greenwich
GIrBIL. dongle.

Dag Brattli wrote (modified by wh): "To use dongles you have to do something
like this:
modprobe tekram         # or esi or actisys                                  
irattach -d tekram      # or -d esi or -d actisys                            
modprobe is not necessary, if /etc/modules.conf is correct. As you can see,
you must still use the -d option with irattach since it is possible to have
two serial ports using different dongles at the same time (so the tty you are
binding must know which dongle it is supposed to use). So if you have two
dongles and two serial ports, you could do something like this:
modprobe tekram                                                              
modprobe esi                                                                 
irattach /dev/ttyS0 -d esi &                                                 
irattach /dev/ttyS1 -d tekram &                                              
PS: I would not try to turn the two dongles against each other, since I
really don't know how the stack would react :-) ... Since I don't have any of
these new ACTiSYS 220L+ dongles, I'm not able to test it. Since the new
dongle has support for one extra speed (38400bps), you must specify the
dongles differently with irattach so that the kernel knows which dongle you
are using (and what QoS can be used):
irattach /dev/ttyS0 -d actisys     # for the 220L dongle                     
irattach /dev/ttyS0 -d actisys+    # for the 220L+ dongle                    
The current implementation of dongle support does not have any state
associated with it, so its not possible to use both ACTiSYS dongles (220L and
220L+) at the same time (connected to two serial ports) for now. If someone
needs to be able to do so, please mail me (Dag Brattli) and I will think
about it!"

Note: When I tried to use an infrared modem (Swissmod 56Ki, manufactured by
Telelink AG) connected to my laptop (IrDA works with Window$95 only, due to
non standard hardware) I had to remove the infrared support in the BIOS to
get it working!

Dag Brattli: "It is now possible to use irport instead of irtty! I have moved
all the dongle stuff out of irtty and into irda_device, so it will also be
possible to attach dongles to irport. Need however to make a small user-space
utility dongle_attach that can be used to attach dongles to a specific driver
instance. BTW: irattach is still working as before, and you will not notice
the difference even when attaching dongles to irtty (I've just redirected the
dongle ioctl to irda_device). Irport may be interesting since you avoid one
software interrupt (bh) level, and it's also forced to work in half duplex
mode so you don't get any echo if the irda port itself don't have
echo-cancellation (girbil dongle and HP-4000 etc) ... To use it, you must
supply the parameters to modprobe like this: modprobe irport io=0x3f8 irq=4,
or whichever values you use. You can also add these parameters to /etc/
conf.modules like this: options irport io=0x3f8 irq=4, but then you must
remember to do a depmod -a and use modprobe irport instead of modprobe."

Alvin Loh: "Anyone with a ESI 9680C can use both parallax's and ESI's
signalling scheme, meaning they can use Parallax's driver with ESI9680C to
work. "
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.1.3. Dongle Connection - Infrared Motherboard Adapter

Support for the ACTiSYS IR2000 dongle has been implemented in a file called
pc87108 which you can either compile into the kernel or modprobe pc87108 to
insert the module or insert modprobe pc87108 into the /etc/irda/drivers file
(I think).

From James I have this description about setting up the hardware: There are
two configurations, a five pin in line connector and a 6 pin DIL (at the end
of a 18 pin DIL header). Basically any IrDA conpatible transceiver will work
(I have a stack of old IRM3001 these are now obselete) you need to hook a
capacitor (use a tantalum about ~1uF) between 5V and 0V near the transceiver
and then connect everthing else up (RX->RX, TX->TX, 5V->5V, and 0V-0V). If
you don't like soldering irons, lots of companies do sell IR modules for the
5 pin connectors that fit into a hole in your case.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.1.4. Fast InfraRed (FIR)

The IrDA(TM) standard knows three kinds of speeds:

*SIR = Standard IrDA, up to 115kbps IrDA,
   
*MIR = Medium Speed IrDA,
   
*FIR = Fast IrDA (4Mbps),
   
*VFIR = Very Fast IrDA(16Mbps), seems to become a future standard
   

 

Up to 115.200bps (SIR) many (probably all) infrared controllers work like a
serial port and use a RZI (return to zero, inverted) modulation. Not every
infrared controller supports 4Mps (FIR), up to 4Mbps they have to use 4PPM (4
pulse position) modulation technique. Currently there are two FIR chips
supported: NationalSemiConductor NSC PC87108 e.g. used in IBM Thinkpad 560X
and Winbond W83977AF (IR) FIR chip e.g. used in the Corel Netwinder PC. You
may start the FIR service by loading the according module. Linux/IrDA will
probe your hardware then. More drivers are under development.

So what speeds can you expect? Using SIR, you should be able to get about 10
Kbytes/s. Using FIR (4Mbps) you can get over 300 Kbytes/s (if you are lucky).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.2. Printer Connection - IrLPT, IrTTP, IrCOMM?

IrLPT seems to be replaced by IrCOMM. Sorry I don't have tested this yet. So
this is only the remaining part from former IrLPT support. Please see mailing
list archive for further information.

 

*Edit /etc/conf.modules, as described above.
   
*Remove any current print jobs with lprm "*".
   
*Run depmod -a .
   
*(If you don't use kerneld do a modprobe irtty. Probably obsolet.)
   
*su to root, and do mknod /dev/irlpt0 c 161 10. Note: Something like ./
    MAKEDEV irlpt0 is not possible yet.
   
*Try to write a small file to /dev/irlpt0 by cat FILE >/dev/irlpt0 (do not
    wonder about a bad format this is just a first check). For me this didn't
    always work, but I couldn't find out why not.
   
*The better way is to change your /etc/printcap to use /dev/irlpt0 in
    addition or instead of /dev/lp1. See Printing-HOWTO for detailed
    information.
   
*For easy printer setup you may use a printing software like APSFILTER,
    MagicFilter EZ-Magic (with RedHat there should also be a GUI for this
    purpose). Make a copy of /etc/printcap before.
   
*Example for APSFILTER with a HP 6P (non-postscript, HP 6MP is with
    postscript). The two relevant questions are: "Do you have a (s)serial or
    a (p)arallel printer interface?" Answer "p" "What's the device name for
    your parallel printer interface?" Answer "/dev/irlpt0"
   
*Restart the print daemon with kill -HUP <PID of lpd>. If you use another
    print daemon choose the according command.
   
*Watch whether the connection indicator of your printer shows activity,
    e.g. the green light above the IR port of a HP 6P/MP comes on (lower left
    hand corner, near the paper tray).
   
*I couldn't get to manage printjobs larger than approximately 10 pages
    yet. But maybe this depends on the memory size of my hardware, which is
    16MB. There seems to be a problem with the software too, Thomas Davis
    wrote: "I will ... limit the irlpt, so it won't eat memory when you send
    a large print file.".
   

 

Takahide Higuchi reported: " I have been debugging IrCOMM with a printer (
Canon BJC-80v ) with IrDA port and IrCOMM protocol (not IrLPT). I can print a
short e-mail text though, it easily causes dead lock when I try to print a
postscript with gs."

From the page of Thomas Davis http://www.jps.net/tadavis/irda : To use the
IrLPT server, you need to perform the following steps:
/sbin/modprobe irlpt_server                                                  
/sbin/mknod /dev/irlptd c 10 `grep irlptd /proc/misc|cut -f 1`               
At this point, the IrLPT server is ready to recieve print jobs; now; all you
need is this simple shell script
#/bin/sh                                                                     
#                                                                            
while (true)                                                                 
do                                                                           
cat /dev/irlptd | lpr                                                        
done                                                                         
Dag Brattli: I hope that this will make it easier for all you that prefer to
live in user-space, to make your own IrDA applications and try it out. Some
printers actually use IrTTP (because of the limitations of IrLPT), so now you
can write your own small user-space printer client so you can talk to it:
int discover_devices(int fd)                                                 
{                                                                            
    struct irda_device_list *list;                                           
    unsigned char buf[sizeof(struct irda_device_list) +                      
          sizeof(struct irda_device_info) * MAX_DEVICES];                    
    int len;                                                                 
    int daddr;                                                               
    int i;                                                                   
                                                                             
    len = sizeof(struct irda_device_list) +                                  
      sizeof(struct irda_device_info) * MAX_DEVICES;                         
    list = (struct irda_device_list *) buf;                                  
                                                                             
    if (getsockopt(sfd, SOL_IRLMP, IRLMP_ENUMDEVICES, buf, &len)) {          
    perror("getsockopt");                                                    
    exit(-1);                                                                
    }                                                                        
    if (len > 0) {                                                           
    /*                                                                       
 

Just pick the first one, but we should really ask the user
     */                                                                      
    daddr = list->dev[0].daddr;                                              
                                                                             
    printf("Discovered: (list len=%d)\n", list->len);                        
                                                                             
    for (i=0;i<list->len;i++) {                                              
        printf("  name:  %s\n", list->dev[i].info);                          
        printf("  daddr: %08x\n", list->dev[i].daddr);                       
        printf("  saddr: %08x\n", list->dev[i].saddr);                       
        printf("\n");                                                        
    }                                                                        
    }                                                                        
    return daddr;                                                            
}                                                                            
                                                                             
void client()                                                                
{                                                                            
    struct sockaddr_irda peer;                                               
    int addrlen = sizeof(struct sockaddr_irda);                              
    int daddr, actual;                                                       
    char buf[1024];                                                          
                                                                             
    fd = socket(AF_IRDA, SOCK_STREAM, 0);                                    
                                                                             
    daddr = discover_devices(fd);                                            
                                                                             
    peer.sir_family = AF_IRDA;                                               
    strcpy(peer.sir_name, "P1284");                                          
    peer.sir_addr = daddr;                                                   
                                                                             
    connect(fd, (struct sockaddr *) &daddr, sizeof(struct sockaddr_irda));   
                                                                             
    /* Try to send something */                                              
    actual = send(fd, "Testing", 8, 0);                                      
                                                                             
    /* Try to read reply */                                                  
    actual = recv(fd, buf, 1024, 0);                                         
}                                                                            
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.3. LAN Connection - IrLAN

 

*You might connect your Linux box using IrLAN to another network device
    such as a Linux box with IrLAN, a HP NetBeamer or a Window$95 box with
    Infrared Network Device support.
   
*Dag Brattli wrote: "If you want to use IrLAN you must modprobe
    irlan_client before ifup eth0. I had to remove the request_module() stuff
    since that needed a process context which I don't have in the kernel. "
    Maybe you have to choose the access mode. You can do this by using
    modprobe irlan access=1 for direct mode. IrLAN states that a provider can
    either be in direct mode, or in peer mode, so you currently have to
    choose when you start IrLAN.
   
*Run ifconfig eth0 up <ip_address> netmask <ip_netmask> to configure it
    with IP-address and other parameters. If the protocol is still running
    you may start communicating. It is possible to use RedHat's netcfg to do
    this, since it makes it very easy. Next time you only need to do /sbin/
    ifup eth0. Notice that ifconfig does not know how to deal with IrLAP
    addresses, so the address is really just the 4 first bytes (in little
    endian format).
   
*Test the network device by pinging to it. For detailed information about
    further setup see the NET3-HOWTO.
   
*Do not forget to add a route, e.g. route add default gw <ip_gateway> or
    route add -host <target host> dev eth0.
   
*Ping to another IP now, to test the connection.
   
*For testing reasons I recommend only to use one laptop and one IR
    ethernet device in the same room. If there are problems look which
    different modes for the IR ethernet device are possible. Try them.
   

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

3.4. HP NetBeamer Connection

 

*Edited /etc/irda/drivers to include irattach /dev/ttyS0 (or whatever your
    "serial" IrDA port is, WH). Also /etc/modules.conf contains alias
    tty-ldisc-11 irtty.
   
*irattach then echo 3 > /proc/sys/net/irda/debug to see what's going on.
   
*modprobe irlan
   
*I had to echo 9 > /proc/sys/net/irda/slot_timeout (use 90 for newer
    kernels!) in order to have the NetbeamIR recognized. Otherwise I was only
    getting a bunch of "media busy" messages, and no actual discovery of the
    NetbeamIR. 9 is the smallest value that worked for me.
   
*renamed /etc/irda/network.orig to /etc/irda/network and edited /etc/irda/
    network.opts for my IP config. Also copied /etc/pcmcia/shared to /etc/
    irda (this file is apparently missing from the distribution).
   
*I also had to comment out grep_stab $1 < /var/run/stab (line 131) in /etc
    /irda/shared. For some reason it fails, spitting a "usage" message.
   
*moved laptop in range, the NetbeamIR is discovered, irlan0 created and
    config'ed.
   
*transferred data at 7 kb/s, both ways: ping, ftp, telnet. Yaho!
   

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

3.5. Palm III Connection - IrCOMM

 

*PPP Rui Oliveira wrote: "This is just to let you know that with the
    latest IrCOMM patch (050998) of Takahide Higuchi, I managed to HotSync
    and establish a PPP connection between my Palm III and my Linux box. I'm
    using IRLink (from IsComplete) to redirect the serial port to ir.
    Communication with pilot-xfer (probably at http://www.slac.com/pilone/
    kpilot_home/mainpage.html) works flawlessly. Although I was able to
    establish a PPP connection, I'm still unable to fetch mail and do Web
    browsing. This is probably due to connection time-outs. I am checking
    this out. Please see the [http://www.linuxdoc.org] PPP-HOWTO for further
    information about PPP. ... I managed to establish an apparently robust
    connection between my Linux box and a Palm III. The pppd invocation I use
    is as follows:
       /usr/sbin/pppd /dev/ircomm0 57600 192.168.2.10:192.168.2.11   
       proxyarp passive silent persist noauth local nodetach         
    Over the PPP connection I used ping, ssh, and http. Strange is however
    the fact that discovery must be enabled (maybe obsolet) . Otherwise, even
    with an active IrCOMM connection, the link goes down due to a IrLAP
    disconnect. The pilot-link tools (used for Linux/Palm synchronization)
    also ran flawlessly over IrCOMM via /dev/ircomm0." There are also reports
    about kpilot, though not working as flawlessly as pilot-xfer.
   
*IrCOMM Jon Howell wrote: "I thought I'd try IrCOMM, since the Palm III
    can be made to reroute serial info to the IR port (using IrLink from IS/
    Complete, available at http://www.palmcentral.com), and then you can run
    a terminal program (like PalmTelnet in serial mode) over IrDA. I can only
    assume it's using the IrCOMM protocol. I've tested this configuration
    between two Palm Pilots, but of course I can't know what the protocol
    running over the IR is." (1) Start HotSync on your Palm. You need the
    [http://www.palm.com/custsupp/downloads/irenhanc.html] IrDA upgrade for
    the Palm to have IrCOMM support (2) Place the Palm in front of the
    dongle. (3) Start pilot-xfer -p /dev/ircomm0 -s <sync-dir> . And if you
    are lucky it will start syncing. If you start pilot-xfer before you start
    HotSync on the Pilot, you will _not_ be lucky! Maybe a terminal program
    like PalmTerm is also useful.
   

 

Wessel de Roode wrote: The Palmpilot is default locked on 57k. You can
however if you write your own software for the Pilot, use the 115k line
settings. I quote a part from the irlib.h:
---------- irlib.h from the SDK 3.0 from palmpilot -----                        
// Options values for IrOpen                                                    
#define irOpenOptBackground     0x80000000   // Unsupported background task use 
#define irOpenOptSpeed115200    0x0000003F   // sets max negotiated baud rate   
#define irOpenOptSpeed57600     0x0000001F   // default is 57600                
#define irOpenOptSpeed9600      0x00000003                                      
Peter Pregler reported: If the Palm enters the range of the irda-device a
popup appears with the text "Transmission: waiting for sender"

Ron Choy answered: There is a software called ShutupIR that is supposed to
help with this problem of annoying popup http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/
VA005810/irda/shutup10.zip I haven't tried it but it looks like it would fix
your problem.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.6. Linux Terminal on Palm (Handspring Visor) via IR

by Chris Morris on Linux/IrDA list: In addidtion to using IR to hotsync my
Handspring Visor I got my Handspring visor to work as a linux text terminal
via infrared last night. My computer is a Dell Inspiron 3800 (BTW I wracked
my brains for weeks trying to get IR to work under the 2.4.0 kernel. The
whole problem was caused by Linux looking at the wrong IRQ for ttyS3 . Maybe
the IR HOWTO should mention that at some point.). I am using Beam Sync for
Visor V1.0b2 by Hacker Dude-san. [http://www.tt.rim.or.jp/~tatsushi] N.N. and
MTerm by Shigeyuki Seko (seko@.jps.net). On the laptop I have IR set to SIR
mode and COM 3 via BIOS. I have to set /dev/ttyS3 to IRQ3 via setserial /dev/
ttyS3 irq 3 on boot up. After boot up I do a:
/sbin/modprobe irda                                                          
/sbin/modprobe irtty                                                         
/sbin/modprobe ircomm                                                        
/sbin/ircomm-tty                                                             
/usr/sbin/irattach /dev/ttyS3 -s                                             
cat /proc/net/irda/discovery shows the visor as IrComm Now /etc/mgetty+fax/
mgetty.conf has to have these options: port ttyS3 direct y speed 9600 ,
faster maybe possible but only 9600 worked for me so far toggle-dtr n Then in
/etc/inittab: palm:235:respawn: /sbin/mgetty ircomm0 After all of this I can
start MTerm, issue a '/sbin/init q' then send a few <CR> from the Visor and I
get a text termianl login. While composing this email I found a previously
undiscovered website that seems most helpful: http://abgruen.de/palm/
palm-ppp-mini.txt
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.7. Psion 5 Connection

Andrew Chadwick wrote: A nifty way to check that the baud rates for SIR are
set up properly (if you have a Psion Series 5) is to point the S5 at your
Linux box's IR window and try to beam a file. While the beamer dialog's on
the screen, the S5 will try to make an IrDA connection (even when it claims
it can't find another IR machine). You should be able to do a cat > /dev/
ttyS3 and if the serial parameters are right on both machines, you should see
the words "Symbian EPOC" (machine ident) scroll past amidst the spew.

Fons Botman wrote: " Maybe someone with a Psion 5 would like to test this
program. It emulates the protocol for the Psion 5 IR send and receive command
for files on linux. You can now exchange files with simple commands. The
transfer rate is 9.7 KBytes/sec on a 115KB SIR link for big files which is
not bad methinks. It is beta, so be sure to backup the Psion first, I did get
a soft reset once (no data loss). ;-)" I have put the source into the
appendix.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.8. Connecting from Linux to WinCE

Submitted by Arthur Tyde and Bryan Abshier of Linuxcare Inc.

This will tell you how to set up a masqueraded PPP connection via. IrDA from
WinCE to a Linux based notebook computer. Once you are IP connected, the rest
is up to you. We put this together as a guide for Sony notebook users with
Casio E-100/105 PDA's, though the procedure should work for any WinCE 2.11
device with infrared capabilities talking to any notebook. Do all the Linux
side testing signed on as root, standard warnings apply.

Configure WinCE Configure a network connection for your WinCE device. Go into
"Connections" and create a "Direct Connection" Name it something meaningful,
for device select "Infrared Port". Go into settings and change the baud rate
to 115200, this is the max for WinCE. Go to TCP/IP settings and check "Use
server-assigned IP address," and "Use software compression," and "Use IP
header compression" Make sure "Use Slip," is unchecked. For Name Servers,
make sure "Use server-assigned addresses" is checked. Go to Start, Settings,
Communications, Identification and enter something for the Device Name. (I
used "cetoy") You most likely already have these values set if you have
synced with a Win9x desktop using Activesynch.

Configure Linux/IrDA Set up IrDA support on your notebook (described
elsewhere) and get to the point where your notebook will discover an IrDA
compliant device. A good sign is the irda0 device will show up when you
execute ifconfig. It will not have an IP address, this is ok.

Setup the Connection Test the discovery by setting an IrDA device in range of
your IR port, wait 5 seconds, and;

cat /proc/net/irda/discovery

For example, the Ericsson I888 World Phone with IR port enabled should
immediately show something like this;

 
"name:I 888 WORLD   ,hint:0x9104,saddr:0x838470e5,daddr:0x152dceaa"          
Your WinCE machine will not be discovered unless it's actively looking for a
connection. So, if you want to test with WinCE position your device and
double tap on the network icon you created in step 2, you should see
something like this:

 
"name:mytoy,hint:0x8204,saddr:0x838470e5,daddr:0x00000b72"                   
The name displayed will be whatever value you have entered into the Start,
Settings, Communications, Identification as the Device Name. At this point,
with basic IrDA functioning- we can move on to establishing a PPP connection
for WinCE. These scripts can also be used for serial cable connects. Create
the following files and copy them into the directory indicated.

/usr/sbin/cebox.sh - make it executable
#!/bin/sh                                                                    
pppd call cebox                                                              
Because Microsoft likes to break standards, you need the following chat
script. This will feed WinCE the proper ASCII keywords it wants before
allowing a PPP connection.

/etc/ppp/cebox.chat
TIMEOUT 3600                                                                 
"CLIENT"    "CLIENT\c"                                                       
""      "SERVER\c"                                                           
The following file will allow you to specify the IP addresses, IR (or serial
port if using a cable) device, DNS and so forth. I do not recommend you
change the 192.IP addresses below. WinCE really has an affection for
192.168.55.100 because all the MS synch tools seem to have it hardcoded. DNS
can be whatever you normally use.

/etc/ppp/peers/cebox
/dev/ircomm0 115200 crtscts                                                  
connect '/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/ppp/cebox.chat'                           
noauth                                                                       
local                                                                        
192.168.55.101:192.168.55.100                                                
ms-dns 10.2.0.1                                                              
 

Testing the connection Ok, now you can test the connection to make sure it
all works. Reboot your machine, run irattach /dev/ttyS2 -s 1 (/dev/ttyS2
being the serial port your BIOS sees the IR device as, if irattach is not
running, start it) Align the IR ports, at the Linux command prompt type /usr/
sbin/cebox.sh, and simultaneously press return to start cebox and double tap
your connection icon in WinCE. You should get a happy message from WinCE
reporting Connecting to Host, Device Connected, Authenticating User, User
Authenticated and finally Connected. You should see something like this when
you are connected:
irda0     Link encap:IrLAP  HWaddr 06:89:d0:58                               
      UP RUNNING NOARP  MTU:2048  Metric:1                                   
      RX packets:246 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0                   
      TX packets:251 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0                 
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:8                                              
                                                                             
ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol                                 
      inet addr:192.168.55.101 P-t-P:192.168.55.100 Mask:255.255.255.255     
      UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1             
      RX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0                    
      TX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0                  
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:10                                             
The following script sets up IrDA, establishes a ppp connection with WinCE,
and then sets up IP masquerading. It is provided as an example of how you can
tie this all together. This is more or less a manual approach. You can get
creative, start irattach at boot and stick a line in inittab to constantly
look for a WinCE connection on the IR port. This will however, run down your
batteries and limit your ability to access other IR gadgets. I just use the
script below. Position the device, run wince and start communications on your
PDA when the script tells you to.

/usr/local/bin/wince - make this executable
#!/usr/bin/perl                                                                 
use strict;                                                                     
#                                                                               
# Enable IrDA, start ppp0 and set up WinCE masquerading                         
# A. Tyde - Linuxcare Inc.                                                      
#                                                                               
print "\n-> Setting up IR infrastructure...\n";                                 
system("killall irattach 2>/dev/null");                                         
sleep 1;                                                                        
system("/usr/sbin/cebox.sh");                                                   
print "   Start WinCE Serial or IR networking now!\n";                          
open(ECHO,">/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward") or die "Can not open /proc/sys/net/ 
ipv4/ip_forward";                                                               
print ECHO "1";                                                                 
close (ECHO);                                                                   
print "   Serving 192.168.55.100 to WinCE device...\n\n";                       
system("ipchains -F");                                                          
sleep 5;                                                                        
system("ipchains -P forward DENY");                                             
system("ipchains -A forward -s 192.168.55.100/32 -j MASQ");                     
exit 0;                                                                         
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.9. Cellular Phone Connection

As far as I know some cellular phones use the IrCOMM standard, e.g. Ericsson
SH888 and NOKIA 6110 (I'm not sure about the NOKIA 8110). Maybe other
cellular phones use the IrOBEX standard (see the Palm III section for
information about setting up a connection) or IrMC.

[http://www.gnokii.org] gnokii is a Linux/Unix tool suite and soon to be
modem/fax driver for Nokia (GSM) mobile phones. Phones supported include
3110, 3810, 8110, 5110, 6110 and their derivatives.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.9.1. Motorola Timeport GSM

Michael McConnell has posted an initial version of a guide to get the
Motorola Timeport GSM phone and Linux-IrDA talking on [ http://
www.eridani.co.uk/docs/linux-timeport/] his website.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.9.2. Ericsson

1. Configuration To start a communication session with /dev/ircomm0 , for
instance, say:
dip -t                                                                       
> port ircomm0                                                               
> term                                                                       
Probably you may use cu or xc instead of dip, too cu -l /dev/ircomm0 or xc -l
/dev/ircomm0. There are also reports about some efforts with the Ericsson
GF768 and IR Modem DI 27.

Benny Amorsen wrote: The SH888 emulates an IRDA-port when you connect it
using the serial cable. Why someone would think up something weird like that
is beyond me, but that is the way you get it to work in Windows. Not that I
ever managed to make it work in Windows, though.

Ales Dryak has send this survey (looks like a Debian/GNU Linux distribution,
please modify your configuration accordingly). Mobile Ericsson SH888 ati1 =
980408 1035 PRGCXC125101:

 
mknod /dev/ircomm0 c 161 0                                                   
mknod /dev/ircomm1 c 161 1                                                   
2. /etc/conf.modules:
alias tty-ldisc-11 irtty                                                     
alias char-major-161 ircomm-tty                                              
3. /etc/irda/drivers: irattach /dev/ttyS0 -s 1 # (IrDA port in SIR mode) 4. /
etc/chatscripts/sh888
<ABORT stuff>                                                                
"" \d\d\d\d\d\dATZE0                                                         
OK ATD<phone number to call)                                                 
CONNECT \d\c                                                                 
5. /etc/ppp/peers/sh888
noauth                                                                                 
connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/chatscripts/sh888"                                  
/dev/ircomm                                                                            
115200                                                                                 
defaultroute                                                                           
noipdefault                                                                            
user <your username> # don't forget to add your password to chap secrets or chat script
 

A few seconds (app. 30) after executing pppd call sh888 I get connected to
our Intranet/Internet having full IP connectivity (telnet, ftp, www, icmp
tested). Futhermore I can connect to /dev/ircomm using minicom and play with
AT command. Great! And looks stable!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.9.3. SH888 Phonebook Tool

Gerhard Gonter reported: Several members of the list are successfully using
the Ericsson mobile phone SH888 with the Linux-IrDA software, usually to use
it as a modem. The software is also quite useful to access other parts of the
phone using AT commands. The built-in phonebook is an interesting target.

After A quick research on the Internet (FreshMeat, Deja, YAHOO), I did not
find any phonebook tool for Linux (or another Unix). To solve that problem, I
wrote a small Perl script and a related module. Since this now works
acceptably well for me, I decided to wrap that up and release it at this
early stage of development. The tarball can be retrieved from http://
falbala.wu-wien.ac.at:8684/pub/english.cgi/0/172903 as http://
falbala.wu-wien.ac.at:8684/pub/english.cgi/d172914/sh888-0.01.t ar.gz

In the mailing list gsmlib was also recommended, though ... there was no way
for me to use this over infrared, no connection with my sh888. Florian Lohoff
reported: Works (kind of) with the S25. I needed to change a ifdef as it
seems the S25 does not respond with CR LF ...But setting a link from /dev/
mobilephone -> /dev/ircomm lets me send SMS via the S25 without a problem.
Phonebook backup does NOT work because the S25 does some silly responses to
probably empty phonebooks.

The specifications for SMS messages and phone books can be downloaded free
(of charge, not FSF free ;-) from ETSI. Search for GSM 07.07 (you might also
want GSM 07.05). You have to register before downloading it. The standards
are in Acrobat PDF format. The S25 supported commands are available on the
Siemens websites as a PDF for free.

A survey of the AT commands for the SH888 is at http://
mobileinternet.ericsson.se/emi_download/sh888/888_R1D.pdf
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.9.4. NOKIA

Carlos Vidal wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Nokia
telephones do not contain a genuine hardware modem, but something which is
similar in principle to WinModems for PC. Whenever Nokia writes about modem
communication, they use the name "Windows software modem" (or something
similar). Which is actually backed up by the need to use special Nokia
software for Windows (called Nokia Cellular Data Suite).

Joonas Lehtinen wrote: This is true with 61xx models. Models: 8810, 9000(i)
and 9110 should work fine. (They have inbuilt modem). My Nokia 9000 reports
IrCOMM with linux.

Some suggestion by Carlos Vidal carlos@tarkus.se : "I'm doing some tests
trying to see how far can I get with my Nokia 6110 on Linux. I've just
compiled gnokii-0.2.4 (gnokii is Nokia mobile phones connected via serial
cable support for Linux and *BSD http://multivac.fatburen.org/gnokii/ , WH),
but it doesn't work. As I have Nokia Data Suite I did the following
connection:

Nokia 6110 <-- Nokia Cable --> PC/Linux <-- Null-modem cable --> PC/W95

In the PC/Linux I run the program snooper (by Jun-ichiro itojun Itoh , sorry
couldn't find an URL maybe some other sniffer will do it also, e.g. sniffit,
see also appendix about serial sniffers, WH) with small modifications in
order to configure the serial port correctly.

Normally, if snooper has the correct baud rate, the phone and the PC/W95
should communicate as if there was no snooper in between. This worked pretty
well when I cracked the protocol of my Minolta camera. The problem here is
that the phone doesn't answer or hangs after a while.

It seems that the timing is quite important during the initial phase of the
communication. The log I obtain is:

0>1: UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU                                                   
line 0: LE *DTR *RTS ST SR CTS CD RI *DSR                                       
line 1: LE *DTR *RTS ST SR CTS CD RI *DSR                                       
0>1: UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU 
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU 
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU 
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU\x1e\x00\x0c\x02\x00\x09\x00\x01\x00\x0d\x00\x00\x02\x01@\x00P\x 
06                                                                              
1>0: \x18\x00\x00\x00\xfc\x18\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xc0\xf0                   
0>1: \x1e\x00\x0c\x02\x00\x09\x00\x01\x00\x0d\x00\x00\x02\x01@\x00P\x06         
1>0: \x18\x00\x00\x00\x18\x00\x00\xc0\xf0\x18\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xc0\xf0   
0>1: \x1e\x00\x0cd\x00\x06\x00\x01\x00\x10\x01`\x13\x13                         
1>0: \x18\x00\x00\xf0\x00\x00\xfc                                               
0>1: \x1e\x00\x0cd\x00\x06\x00\x01\x00\x10\x01`\x13\x13                         
0 is the PC/95 and 1 is the phone. The communication starts with a stream of
'U' (0x55) and with DSR/DTR on. The phone answers with '0x18 0x00 ...'. This
dialog continues for a while as if both were deaf and finally the phone
crashes and the only way to reset it is to remove the batteries!

I guess that what happens is that the phone is trying to find the correct
baud-rate and fails because of the delays introduced by snooper. This
probably has to do with some IrDA protocol used with also with the infrared
connection."

Wessel de Roode "I managed to get the Discovery IR hint bits (with my Palm
Pilot):

Discover:                                                                    
0:xxxxxxxx:81.01                                                             
    01  IR_HINT_PNP     01  IR_HINT_TELEPHONY (IrMC ?)                       
    80  IR_HINT_EXT                                                          
                                                                             
Device info query:                                                           
\006Device\012DeviceName                                                     
    4e 6f 6b 69 61 20 36 31 30 30       Nokia 6100                           
I also managed to query the PNP device of the Nokia. It has one PNP device.
It's PNPC100 which equalt a 9600 baud modem. I deleted the query, if somene
can send me a hint to restore it. was somthing like IrDA:<dunno>:PNP:Comp#01
The same query with IrDA:<dunno>:PNP:CompCnt gives the number of PNP-devices
are available in the Nokia. Which is here only one."

Maybe it is necessary to load the irlpt_server module for connections to a
NOKIA.

There are also reports about gsmlib for sending and receiving sms messages,
updating address books etc). These functions are working, except for minor
charset problems.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.9.5. Siemens S25

Configuration By Florian Lohoff: "Do it step by step - Get your irda working
irattach /dev/ttySx etc. Then have a look at the /proc/net/irda/discovery
whether you find something like this:

 
(flo@paradigm)~# cat /proc/net/irda/discovery                                
IrLMP: Discovery log:                                                        
nickname: SIEMENS S25, hint: 0x9024, saddr: 0x4286ce23, daddr: 0x04295741    
Now load ircomm and ircomm-tty and normally(tm) you should be able to connect
to the correct /dev/ircomm and you can easily dial and load/backup the
phonebook etc ...", e.g. with minicom.

Timo Felbinger describes the connection between a Toshiba and a Siemens S25:

 

*kernel 2.2.12 and patch-2.2.12-irda3, IrDA support in the kernel, ircomm
    and ircomm-tty as a module 
   
*mknod /dev/ircomm0 c 161 0
   
*modprobe ircomm, modprobe ircomm-tty
   
*start irattach with modprobe toshoboe in the start section of /etc/irda/
    drivers . Note: don't load toshoboe before the irattach, this may cause
    device or resource busy 
   
*after dip -t and the command port ircomm0 the S25 shows a connection.
    Note: the IR port of the S25 has to be activated of course, the distance
    between the two devices seems not critical.
   
*After term the S25 behaves like the usual Hayes modem and can be used
    with the AT commands.
   
*dial-out with pppd works out of the box.
   

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

3.9.6. German e-plus

A note to German e-plus users:

Every e-plus contract (except Free&Easy) contains a PPP conncetion to the WWW
(no separate registration necessary). This service is available around
Germany under the phone number 123100. This worked also out of the box.

pppd configuration:

 
/dev/ircomm0                                                                 
defaultroute                                                                 
netmask 255.255.255.0                                                        
debug                                                                        
mtu 552                                                                      
crtscts                                                                      
noauth                                                                       
connect '/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/ppp/eplus.chat'                           
chat script /etc/ppp/eplus.chat:                                             
 

 
ABORT "BUSY"                                                                 
ABORT "ERROR"                                                                
ABORT "NO CARRIER"                                                           
ABORT "NO DIALTONE"                                                          
ABORT "NO ANSWER"                                                            
SAY "initializing modem..."                                                  
"" "AT"                                                                      
"OK" "ATZ"                                                                   
SAY "dialing..."                                                             
"OK" "ATDT123100"                                                            
SAY "waiting for CONNECT..."                                                 
"CONNECT" ""                                                                 
SAY "connected!"                                                             
SAY ""                                                                       
For the nameserver you may use 192.76.144.66 . Username or password are not
necessary.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.10. Digital Camera Connection

Markus Schill wrote: "Great that there are also other people who are
interested in using the SONY DSC-F1 IR adapter under linux. Up to now I have
only toyed around with the linux-irda software and the serial IR adapter from
PuMa Technologies that came with the camera. This is the status. I am using
linux 2.0.33 and the latest linux-irda... If I use:
modprobe irda                                                                
modprobe irtty                                                               
irattach /dev/ircomm0                                                        
the adapter starts talking to the camera. /var/log/messages says that
SONY-DSC-F1 was found, but no service is started. (Please note, this probably
doesn't apply to the 2.2.x kernel versions of Linux/IrDA, [WH]).

There are two programs for linux available that can be used for the
communication with the camera via cable: (1) chotplay and (2) stillgrab. They
both take a tty as commandline option, so I guess that they should work if
the irtty layer of the protocol stack works correctly ... I have not looked
at anything in the linux-irda code, yet!). I am not sure whether I understand
the stack but shouldn't the irtty make the thing look like a normal tty? What
service should be started. "

Dag Brattli wrote: "I'm not sure which application level protocol the camera
uses, but it is possible that it implements the IrDA(TM) Infrared Transfer
Picture Specification (IrTran-P). If you take a look at http://www.irda.org/
standards/pubs/IrTran-P_10.pdf, you will see that it is a protocol which is
implemented above IrCOMM (not IrTTY!). IrTTY is something we use just to be
able to talk to the Linux serial driver. "

The Kodak-Digital-Camera-HOWTO by David Burley now describes how to get IrDA
working and implemented to get communications and to use the DigitalOS
camera's with Linux and IrDA.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.11. Window$9x/NT and Linux/IrDA

3.11.1. Introduction

Why this? Unfortunately Linux users are not always supported with the
necessary hardware information. Sometimes it is possible to look at this
informations in Window$95. Sometimes its even useful to connect the two.
Linux could also provide occasional access point services to a Window95
laptop of a friend dropping by.

Where to get it from? At http://www.microsoft.com in the directory /Windows95
/downloads/contents/WURecommended/S_WUCommunications/W95IrDA / you will find
a support pack Infrared Transfer 2.0. It is a self-extracting archive
W95IR.EXE with 331KB. Note: Microsoft seems to change the location of this
file (and others) at random, the former URL is Microsoft Windows95 IrDA - Old

Microsoft(tm) has three versions of IrDA support for Windows95. The version
number can be found in the "Software" icon in the Control Panel and the file
infrared.inf.

Version 1.0 is still delivered with some hardware.

Version 2.0 is the version they currently offer at their web site. It is in
the self-extracting file W95IR.EXE. The last time I looked (1999-02-21) it
was 434KB and was found at http://support.microsoft.com/download/support/
mslfiles/W95IR.EXE . Their website is frequently changing, so do not be
surprised to find the file (also) in another location or not at all.

Version 3.0 can/could be found in their downloadable Infrared development kit
IRDDK30, but is mostly useful for developers. It is internally different from
2.0, it is based on "miniport" network drivers, just like the Linux version.
It exists for some time and has some support for NT, but it clearly did not
make it into the mainstream NT4.0 distributions. For 95 you are probably
better off with 2.0. The choice may depend on the documentation of the
drivers you get with your specific hardware.

MS website also used to contain a nice utility IrXfer, contained in the
archive IRXFER.EXE, This is the Infrared Transfer utility, which uses an
IrOBEX variant I think, it is referenced in the IrOBEX protocol description.
The utility was freely downloadable, but I could not find it the last time.
It is a nice graphical utility which can be used to transfer files over IrDA
between computers.

With some machines, e.g. a HP Omnibook 800 it is necessary to use a vendor
specific version of this package (for the HP Omnibook 800 you may find it on
the recovery CD).

Especially the ..\windows\inf\*.inf files and the device manager are of
interest to look for configuration details.

As far as I know Window$NT doesn't support IrDA(TM). About Window$98 I have
heard there is no IrDA(TM) support yet. Countersys on http://
www.countersys.com claims to sell an IrDA solution for NT4.0 to support their
JetBeam product, Microsoft refers to them for it.

AFAIK:

 

*Windows95 : use 2.0
   
*Windows98 : delivered with 3.0 and IrXfer (works with Linux/IrDA,
    IrOBEX?) 
   
*WindowsNT4.0: no IrDA
   
*Windows2000 : 3.0(+?) http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/infrared/
   
    There are also some non M$ products available. Note: Some of them use
    proprietary infrared protocols:
   
*CounterPoint: QuickBeam 1.15 (works with Linux/IrDA, IrOBEX?)
   
*LapLink 7.5
   
*CarbonCopy 32 4.0
   
*pc ANYWHERE 7.5
   
*Puma Technology: TRANXIT pro 4.0
   

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

3.11.2. Connection between Linux/IrDA and Window$95 IrDA(TM)

You may use [http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/IrDA/index.html]
IrNET .

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

3.11.3. Communication between Win98 and Linux

Ha Duong Minh: Today I am delighted to report that ircp from the openobex
project, http://sourceforge.net/projects/openobex/ works like a charm to
transfer files between my linux box and its win98 cousin. It can't be
simpler: ircp file1, file2, ... or: ircp -r [DEST] Send files over IrDA. Use
-r to receive files.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.12. Linux to Linux Connection

3.12.1. Connection Methods

There should be four ways to get two Linux machines connected via Linux/IrDA.

 

*Dag Brattli wrote about the IrOBEX support: "The awakened reader may
    wonder what prevents the beaming of files from Linux to Linux? Well,
    nothing!! (but I haven't tried that yet). This means that we now have a
    "simple" way of beaming files between Linux laptops. I think that this
    may be the "killer app" we all have been waiting for!" Try to "load_misc
    irobex at both ends, and then try iroabex_app get on one of the machines
    and irobex put <file> on the other.".
   
*Via Linux/IrDA network connection. I suppose you have to load the module
    irlan_client at one machine and irlan_server at the other one. 
   
*With IrCOMM support, in other words over a serial line, which could mean
    minicom, pppd, etc. If you want just now to use IrCOMM between Linux
    boxes, please add this line to /etc/conf.modules of _one_ box:
    # set ircomm protocol engine to client-only mode                 
    options ircomm ircomm_cs=1                                       
    Note: Don't add it to both boxes, or they cannot accept incoming
    connection each other! But since 2.2.7 there's no need to add options
    ircomm ircomm_cs=1 to /etc/conf.modules anymore. Please remove it if you
    are using it.
   
*[http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/IrDA/index.html] IrNET
   

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

3.12.2. Compression

Please note this feature is still quite experimental! Dag Brattli wrote:
"Just wanted you to know I have just added COMPRESSION support to IrLAP! As
you may know, this is _not_ part of the IrDA(TM) standard, but Linux can now
negotiate with its peer and check if it has the same compression
capabilities). So obviously if you are talking to Win95, Palm III or
whatever, you will _not_ get compression!!! This is something which is
exclusive for Linux as far as I know! The IrDA(TM) standard says that devices
should ignore unknown field in the negotiation header, so we are still
"compatible" with IrDA(TM) (have just borrowed an unused header value).

If you want to try using the compression code (Linux <-> Linux) you will have
to insert the irda_deflate module some time before you actually make the
connection. I do it before irattach.

The compression standard I have added is the deflate format used by the zlib
library which is described by RFCs (Request for Comments) 1950 to 1952 in the
files ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1950.txt (zlib format), rfc1951.txt
(deflate format) and rfc1952.txt (gzip format).

The compression interface is similar to PPP, so you can add as many different
compressors as you want. Currently there is only support for GZIP, but BSD
compression will be added later. ... Have just tested GZIP compression at
4Mbps. It was a really bad idea! Compressing the frames takes so much time
that the performance is actually worse than when not using compression at
all. The conclusion is that compression should only be used for SIR speeds,
..."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.13. Multiple Instances

Dag Brattli wrote: "The IrLAP layer has been enhanced to allow more than one
instance (so I can use IrLAN on my built-in ir-port, and communicate with the
Pilot over the IrDA dongle at the same time) ... So how do you make two Linux
/IrDA connections? Well, you just fire up irattach for each of the IrDA ports
you have like this:
irattach /dev/ttyS0         # (my ESI dongle)                                
irattach /dev/ttyS2         # (my builtin IrDA port)                         
Also work with FIR devices like this :
irattach irda0 -s 1                                                          
irattach irda1 -s 1                                                          
They will not see each other if you run them on the same machine, since they
will initiate discovery exactly at the same time. You should however be able
to use them against two other laptops. I can run a dongle, builtin IrDA port
and a IrDA PCMCIA card at the same time with three other IrDA devices without
any problems.

You should notice that if the devices can interfere with each other then it
might be difficult to obtain a connection, since a device is not allowed to
transmit if the media is busy. I sometimes have to put a book between them."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.14. Connection to Docking Station

Dag Brattli: "Connection to the Tekram IRDocking IR-660 http://www.tekram.com
/Hot_Products.asp?Product=IR-660 . This device is a docking station with LAN
access, printer, mouse and keyboard. You can also use them at the same time
as the internal mouse and keyboard! Just fire up gpm -t ps2 /dev/irkbd and
the laptop will make a keyboard/mouse connection to the IR-660. Now I just
have to make gpm read both /dev/psaux and /dev/irkbd, and then make X11 read
/dev/gpmdata, and I should have the thing configured!

... one problem: gpm can handle multiple mice, but Linux cannot handle
multiple different keyboards. So if you have one norwegian keyboard and one
remote US keyboard like I have, then things will be a little bit confusing. I
got a hint from Alan Cox about a project that is implementing real support
for multiple keyboards, so I'll check that out.

... OK, I sort of worked it out. By using TIOCSTI on /dev/console, you can
insert scancodes directly into the tty queue. This can be a problem for
virtual consoles that expect to receive some translated and cooked keycodes,
but X happens to like raw scancodes, so this will work quite nice when using
X but not for other virtual consoles. Anyway this is good enough for me, so I
will not use a lot of time converting the scancodes to keycodes and index
them with some keymap just to make it work with text only virtual consoles.
As I see it the irkbd driver has now been successfully been ported to
user-space :-)

... the Tekram IR-660 device can, in addition to attach a keyboard and mouse,
also print using IrTTP (it can print using IrLPT, but that is not so funny
since it requires exclusive use of IrLMP, and you don't wan't to stop the
network, mouse and keyboard just to print a document). I'll try and see if I
can get IrTTP printing working using a fifo as well.

... Tekram has added a control channel in addition to the data channel so
that you can get some status information about what is going on. The name of
their own protocol is P1248. It's published through the "P1248" class and
"IrDA:TinyTP:LsapSel" LM-IAS entry, so you can try to find it.

... Canon is using the P1248 protocol, and their printer monitor program
BrintBuddy2 (Japanese version) is using this protocol now. I don't know what
they use for the data channel. Maybe they support TinyTP directly in addition
to the other methods. You can try and look up the "IrLPT" class with the
"IrDA:TinyTP:LsapSel" in the LM-IAS and see if you can find it."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.15. Connection to Keyboard

The Linux/IrDA keyboard driver is now in user-space. Please see chapter
Connection to Docking Station above.

Lichen Wang: "The so called IrDA-D standard is designed to transfer Data. It
is not suitable for IR Keyboard. IrDA-D is what Dag ported to Linux OS and
what MS ported to Windows OS.

The so called IrDA-C (Control) is designed for Keyboard, Joy-stick, etc. I am
not aware that there is any product in the market that is using it yet.

IrDA-D cannot talk to IrDA-C. IrDA-C cannot talk to IrDA-D either. Both the
physical encoding/decoding and the software protocol are very different.

It is possible to implement both IrDA-D and IrDA-C in the same device. Sharp
says that IrDA-D and IrDA-C can coexist -- as long as both of them are not
used at the same time in the same IR space. This sounds rather funny to me.
According to this definition, anything can co-exist with anything as long as
you do not destroy the universe permanently in the process ;-)

Seriously, what SHARP says is that they can tailor the IrDA-D so that there
are some unused time between the negotiated maximum turnaround time and the
actual transmission. They then squeeze the IrDA-C frames in those unused
time. The IrDA-D Primary and IrDA-C Master must be implemented in the same
device. The keyboards will work, but mice and joysticks may be sluggish at
times."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.16. Connection via Serial Cable

For some reasons it may be useful to connect via serial cable instead of
using a real infrared link. Bjorn Hanson wrote: "Using a cable, I managed to
get a PPP connection through my Ericsson SH888. I did the following (maybe
some steps are wrong but they worked for me :-)

 

*added alias tty-ldisc-11 irtty to /etc/conf.modules
   
*edited /etc/irda/drivers to irattach /dev/ttyS0
   
*manually inserted the irda and irtty modules using modprobe
   
*start irattach
   
*run kppp using /dev/ircomm0 (through symlink /dev/modem)
   
*executed stty < /dev/ircomm0
   
*ping the host
   
*ifconfig irda0 down
   

 

Everything worked fine for ping and ssh (doing ls -l a couple of times) but
the computer hang when I tried to mail (Netscape) this through that PPP.
After reboot I tried both Netscape and lynx. Both were able to establish
contact but none got any data."

Another way by Claudiu Costin:

 

*Linux 2.2.5 with IrDA compiled as modules
   
*Because irattach don't make kernel to load automatically IrDA stack,
    let's type modprobe actisys .
   
*Now, irattach /dev/ttyS1 -d actisys where COM2 is used for null link
   
*ping <address> works very good!
   

 

This has to be done for both machines.

Please note this is not the recommended stuff to connect two machines. Use
PPP instead. Though I cannot see how this approach is useful I have included
it beause it was asked sometimes in the mailing list.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.17. Null Modem Cable Connection

You may set up a connection without IrDA capable hardware, using a serial
null modem cable. Just attach the IrDA ports to the serial ports, .e.g
irattach /dev/ttyS0 -s 1 on both machines.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.18. Peer-to-Peer Mode / Direct Mode

IrCOMM and IrLAN work in both modes, but currently I don't have further
information about the differences between these modes and how to set them up.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.19. Linux/IrDA with Toshiba Notebooks

Guenther Wieser has written a [http://www.creative-it.com/linux/irda/
toshiba_irda_howto.html] HOWTO about Toshiba and IrDA . These notebooks need
the toshoboe Linux/IrDA driver.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.20. IrDA Card in a Desktop Computer

Some recent motherboards are equipped with IrDA chips, in some cases you Need
IrDA LEDs additionally. You may find a working example described by [http://
bogmog.sourceforge.net/document_show.php3?doc_id=13] Andreas Gohr.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 4. Hardware Supported by Linux/IrDA

4.1. Obtaining Information about the Infrared Port in Laptops

To get the IrDA port of your laptop working with Linux/IrDA you may use
StandardInfraRed (SIR) or FastInfraRed (FIR).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.1.1. SIR

Up to 115.200bps, the infrared port emulates a serial port like the 16550A
UART. This will be detected by the kernel serial driver at boot time, or when
you load the serial module. If infrared support is enabled in the BIOS, for
most laptops you will get a kernel message like:
Serial driver version 4.25 with no serial options enabled                    
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A     #first serial port /dev/ttyS0     
ttyS01 at 0x3000 (irq = 10) is a 16550A    #e.g. infrared port               
ttyS02 at 0x0300 (irq = 3) is a 16550A     #e.g. PCMCIA modem port           
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.1.2. FIR

If you want to use up to 4Mbps, your machine has to be equipped with a
certain FIR chip. You need a certain Linux/IrDA driver to support this chip.
Therefore you need exact information about the FIR chip. You may get this
information in one of the following ways:

 

 1. Read the specification of the machine, though it is very rare that you
    will find enough and reliable information there.
   
 2. Try to find out whether the FIR chip is a PCI device. Do a cat /proc/pci
    . The appropriate files for 2.2.x kernels are in /proc/bus/pci . Though
    often the PCI information is incomplete. You may find the latest
    information about PCI devices and vendor numbers in the kernel
    documentation usually in /usr/src/linux/Documentation or at the page of
    Craig Hart [http://members.hyperlink.net.au/~chart] http://
    members.hyperlink.net.au/~chart . From kernel 2.1.82 on, you may use 
    lspci from the pci-utils package, too. 
   
 3. Use the DOS tool CTPCI330.EXE provided in ZIP format by the German
    computer magazine CT [ftp://www.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/ctpci330.zip] ftp://
    www.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/ctpci330.zip. The information provided by this
    program is sometimes better than that provided by the Linux tools.
   
 4. Try to get information about Plug-and-Play (PnP) devices. Though I didn't
    use them for this purpose yet, the isapnp tools, could be useful.
   
 5. If you have installed the Linux/IrDA software load the FIR modules and
    watch the output of dmesg, whether FIR is detected or not.
   
 6. Another way how to figure it out explained by Thomas Davis (modified by
    WH): "Dig through the FTP site of the vendor, find the Windows9x FIR
    drivers, and they have (for a SMC chip):
    -rw-rw-r--   1 ratbert  ratbert       743 Apr  3  1997 smcirlap.inf  
    -rw-rw-r--   1 ratbert  ratbert     17021 Mar 24  1997 smcirlap.vxd  
    -rw-rw-r--   1 ratbert  ratbert      1903 Jul 18  1997 smcser.inf    
    -rw-rw-r--   1 ratbert  ratbert     31350 Jun  7  1997 smcser.vxd    
    If in doubt, always look for the .inf/.vxd drivers for Windows95.
    Windows95 doesn't ship with _ANY_ FIR drivers. (they are all third party,
    mostly from Counterpoint, who was assimilated by ESI)."
   
 7. Also Thomas Davis found a package of small DOS utilities made by SMC.
    Look at [http://www.smsc.com/ftppub/chips/appnote/ir_utils.zip] http://
    www.smsc.com/ftppub/chips/appnote/ir_utils.zip . The package contains 
    FINDCHIP.EXE. And includes a FIRSETUP.EXE utility that is supposed to be
    able to set all values except the chip address. Furthermore it contains 
    BIOSDUMP.EXE, which produces this output:
   
    Example 1 (from a COMPAQ Armada 1592DT)
   
    In current devNode:                                               
               Size      = 78                                         
               Handle    = 14                                         
               ID        = 0x1105D041 = 'PNP0511' -- Generic IrDA SIR 
    Types:  Base = 0x07, Sub = 0x00,  Interface = 0x02                
    Comm. Device, RS-232, 16550-compatible                            
    Attribute = 0x80                                                  
                    CAN be disabled                                   
                    CAN be configured                                 
    BOTH Static & Dynamic configuration                               
    Allocated Resource Descriptor Block TAG's:                        
    TAG=0x47, Length=7 I/O Tag, 16-bit Decode                         
    Min=0x03E8, Max=0x03E8                                            
    Align=0x00, Range=0x08                                            
    TAG=0x22, Length=2 IRQ Tag, Mask=0x0010                           
    TAG=0x79, Length=1 END Tag, Data=0x2F                             
   
    Result 1:
   
    Irq Tag, Mask (bit mapped - ) = 0x0010 = 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 so,
    it's IRQ 4. (start at 0, count up ..), so this is a SIR only device, at
    IRQ=4, IO=x03e8.
   
    Example 2 (from an unknown machine)
   
     
    In current devNode:                                              
              Size      = 529                                        
              Handle    = 14                                         
              ID        = 0x10F0A34D = 'SMCF010' -- SMC IrCC         
    Types:  Base = 0x07, Sub = 0x00,  Interface = 0x02               
    Comm. Device, RS-232, 16550-compatible                           
    Attribute = 0x80                                                 
                   CAN be disabled                                   
                   CAN be configured                                 
    BOTH Static & Dynamic configuration                              
                                                                     
    Allocated Resource Descriptor Block TAG's:                       
    TAG=0x47, Length=7 I/O Tag, 16-bit Decode                        
    Min=0x02F8, Max=0x02F8                                           
    Align=0x00, Range=0x08                                           
    TAG=0x22, Length=2 IRQ Tag, Mask=0x0008                          
    TAG=0x47, Length=7 I/O Tag, 16-bit Decode                        
    Min=0x02E8, Max=0x02E8                                           
    Align=0x00, Range=0x08                                           
    TAG=0x2A, Length=2 DMA Tag, Mask=0x02, Info=0x08                 
    TAG=0x79, Length=1 END Tag, Data=0x00                            
     
   
    Result 2:
   
    a) it's a SMC IrCC chip
   
    b) one portion is at 0x02f8, has an io-extent of 8 bytes; irq = 3
   
    c) another portion is at 0x02e8, io-extent of 8 bytes; dma = 1 (0x02 =
    0000 0010)
   
    Thomas Davis has placed some device information at [http://www.jps.net/
    tadavis/irda/devids.txt] http://www.jps.net/tadavis/irda/devids.txt .
   
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |                            Warning                            |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |The package is not intended for the end user, and some of the  |
    |utilities could be harmful. The only documentation in the      |
    |package is in Microsoft Word format. Linux users may read this |
    |with catdoc, available at [http://www.fe.msk.ru/~vitus/catdoc/]|
    |http://www.fe.msk.ru/~vitus/catdoc/ .                          |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
   
 8. Use the Device Manager of the MicroSoft Windows9x/NT operating system.
   
 9. You may also use the hardware surveys mentioned below.
   
10. And as a last ressort, you may even open the laptop and look at the
    writings at the chipsets itselfs. Here is an probably incomplete list of
    manufacturers: Chrystal, Hewlett Packard (HP, chipsets are marked HSDL),
    Hitachi, IBM, National Semi Conductor (NSC), NEC, Philips, Sharp,
    Standard Micro Systems Corporation (SMC/SMSC), Texas Instruments (TI),
    VLSI, Winbond. As an example of application circuits the HSDL-7001 (from
    a HP brochure, modified by WH):
        LEDs    Encode/Decode    SIR/FIR                             
                                                                     
       HSDL-1001    HSDL-7001      UART 16550/                       
                      MicroController                                
       ______      ______________      ____________                  
      |      |    |              |    |            |                 
    (||   TXD|<---|IR_TXD     TXD|<---|SOUT        |                 
      |      |    |              |    |            |                 
      |      |    |           RCV|--->|SIN        |                  
      |      |    |              |    |            |                 
    (||   RCV|--->|IR_RCV  16XCLK|<---|BAUDOUT     |                 
      |      |    |          NRST|-+  |            |                 
       ------      --------------  |   ------------                  
                                   V                                 
     
   

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

4.2. Hardware Surveys

There are some surveys about Linux and infrared capable devices in the WWW:

 

*The Linux/IrDA Project - Hardware Survey http://irda.sourceforge.net
   
*Takahide Higuchi at http://www.pluto.dti.ne.jp/~thiguchi/ir/product.html
    .This page is in Japanese. 
   
*I have also set up a [http://mobilix.org/ir_misc.html] IrDA hardware
    survey at MobiliX . This list also contains information about infrared
    capable devices which are not mentioned here (mice, printers, remote
    control, transceivers, etc.). To make this hardware survey more valuable
    it is necessary to collect more information about the infrared devices in
    different hardware. You can help by sending me a short e-mail containing
    the exact name of the hardware you have and which type of infrared
    controller is used. Please let me also know how well Linux/IrDA worked,
    at which tty, port and interrupt it works and the corresponding infrared
    device (e.g. printer, cellular phone) you use. You can also help by
    contributing detailed technological information about some infrared
    devices, which is necessary to develope an according driver for Linux.
   

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

4.3. Big Endian

Though the source is build to work with big endian machines, I didn't get any
reports about actually using it. It would be interesting if it's actually
working or not. You will probably need an IrDA dongle or something to test
it.

i386 and alpha are little endian, arm can choose (but the NetWinder has been
wired as a little endian machine). m68k, sparc and ppc are big-endian! mips
can choose I think. If unsure, look in /usr/src/linux/asm/byteorder.h and
check if it includes linux/byteorder/big_endian.h or linux/byteorder/
little_endian.h .
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.4. SMP

Jean Tourrilhes: "Tested IrSock, IrNET and OpenObex with multiple dongles on
a SMP box. Works fine. However, the code is not fully SMP safe yet, so you
never know..."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.5. IrDA Hardware

 

*SIR
   
*FIR
   
*serial dongle
   
*usb dongle
   
*PCMCIA cards
   
*PCI cards
   

 

You may find a survey of Linux/IrDA capable devices at [http://mobilix.org/
ir_misc.html] MobiliX.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.6. IrDA and USB

There is a USB IrDA Bridge Device spec at Rev 0.9B , it's being adopted as a
USB class specification. You can find it at under 0.9 Class Specification
header.

As far as I know the Actisys 2000U and Extended System ESI-9685 dongles seem
to be based on the same hardware. Both USB dongles work fine with the Linux
driver. It's possible to have multiple USB dongles in a box (for now, only up
to 4).

The driver is not yet in the kernel and not yet super stable. All current
hardware are the same and not that great, IMHO. The driver is available in
the latest IrDA patch. Startup with :
modprobe usb-uhci                                                            
modprobe irda-usb                                                            
irattach irda0 -s 1                                                          
You have been warned ;-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.7. Linux/IrDA on PDAs

Some Linux PDAs (iPAQ, Cassiopeia) have an IrDA port. Currently I don't have
informations how to set them up (though my iPAQs IrDA port shows up in
dmesg). See http://www.uclinux.org, http://www.pocketlinux.com and http://
www.handhelds.org for further information.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 5. Advanced Topics

5.1. Troubleshooting

5.1.1. General Information

If you encounter problems. Try the following:

 

*Read the FAQ section below.
   
*Look at /var/log/messages and/or /var/log/kern.
   
*Do a dmesg.
   
*Look at the different files in /proc/irda.
   

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

5.1.2. Troubleshooting Techniques

Although I'm not much of a hacker I collected some tricks to track errors or
bugs in the Linux/IrDA software.

 

*You may set the debug level in /proc/sys/net/irda/debug to 1, 2, 3, 4.
   
*Use the files in /proc/sys/net/irda to try different parameters like echo
    0 > /proc/sys/net/irda/discovery. The /proc/*/irda files are:
    root@duckman:~# ls /proc/sys/net/irda/* /proc/net/irda/*         
    /proc/net/irda/discovery                                         
    /proc/net/irda/irlmp                                             
    /proc/net/irda/irda_device                                       
    /proc/net/irda/irttp                                             
    /proc/net/irda/irias                                             
    /proc/net/irda/irlap                                             
    /proc/sys/net/irda/devname                                       
    /proc/sys/net/irda/discovery                                     
    /proc/sys/net/irda/compression                                   
    /proc/sys/net/irda/debug                                         
     
   
*It is also possible to debug the code. But I don't know how to do this.
    If you want to use SKB debug code, you may edit irda.h and change /
    include/linux/skbuff.h (see revision history of snapshot 10-2-98).
   
*For problems with the irda module a utility from the modules package
    kdstat might be helpful. But I was not able to try this.
   
*"You can now alter the number of discovery packets used (1, 6, 8 or 16)
    and the timeout between sending them (2-8 * 10 ms) in /proc/sys/net/irda.
    Please experiment if you have problems discovering your device. My Palm
    III seems to like 16 discovery_slots and 8 (*10 ms) for slot_timeout. "
    ... "The absolute minimum for reliable discovery of the IR-610 seems to
    be 9." Another statement: ... the Palm III does not like 8 discovery
    frames in a row, but 6 is OK. With 8 it will answer 1 out of 6-10 times,
    with 6 it answers every time. I really don't know if this is a problem
    with Linux-IrDA or the Palm III. One solution to this problem, is to
    cycle though some different discovery methods for each discovery like
    this: Disocvery 1: send 8 xid frames with 80 ms separation If answer,
    keep the same config, if no answer, try next config Discovery 2: send 6
    xid frames with 80 ms separation Discovery 3: send 8 xid frames with 90
    ms separation Discovery 4: send 6 xid frames with 90 ms separation
    Discovery 5. Go back to 1. or some other pattern and maybe more
    combinations. Maybe this is sometimes implemented, so it would be enabled
    if /proc/sys/net/irda/discovery_slots is set to 0 .
   
*If anybody gets a kernel Oops, then please feed it to the ../linux/
    scripts/ksymoops/ksymoops program, so that we can find out where it went
    wrong. Just cut out the Oops lines from the syslog, save them to a file,
    and then run ksymoops <file>
   
*Dag Brattli wrote: I found out that the cs4232 sound card was giving me
    several hundred interrupts per second! I removed the sound stuff from my
    kernel, and the machine is now generally about 4 times faster! Linux/IrDA
    may get problems if you are running the esound server (esd) on your
    machine. Both my machines, a 166Mhz Pentium laptop and a 200Mhz Pentium
    Pro cannot run Linux/IrDA when esd is running. The reason is that esd
    makes the soundcard give interrups over 300 times/second which makes the
    serial driver overrun when receiving. This is because the serial driver
    now uses slow interrupts in Linux-2.2 (everything is slow interrupts in
    2.2), so the interrupt-handler schedules on its way out. The good thing
    about slow interrupts is that packets are delivered much faster, since
    you don't need to wait for the next timer-tick. The only exception for
    this is the pc87108 driver which works fine since it uses DMA and will
    only give a couple of interrupts per packet.
   
*There are also some userspace tools irdaping and irdadump to check Linux/
    IrDA connections.
   
*AFAIK it is possible to use IrCOMM either with an infrared device or via
    serial cable. Maybe this give some debugging possibilities, too.
   
*1) You may edit /etc/conf.modules, adding the following lines: option
    irda irda_debug=3 option irlpt_client_debug=3 irlpt_common_debug=3 2)
    Make sure the irda modules have been totally removed. 3) Edit /etc/
    syslog.conf, adding the following lines:
    */*         -/var/log/all                                        
    4) Do killall -1 syslogd . 5) Print, or do whatever causes problems with
    irlpt . 6) Check all the files in /var/log/ .
   

 

For some ThinkPad models you have to reboot to the preinstalled M$ OS and
activate the IrDA port using the Thinkpad tools. There is currently no Linux
tool to achieve that. This will disable your internal serial port (ttyS0)!.
The DOS tool is PS2.EXE, as far as I know tpctl doesn't achieve this. It is
really important to use this DOS program (ps2.exe) to enable IR. Using the
windows tools does not work. Without that the driver loads correctly and
everythings seems OK, but the LED does not light bright enough.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.1.3. PCI Device Numbers

Daniel R. Risacher magnus@alum.mit.edu wrote: To syncronize my Palm III with
my Tecra 8100 running 2.2.17, I needed to edit /usr/src/linux/include/net/
irda/toshoboe.h I changed "#define PCI_DEVICE_ID_FIR701 0x0701" to "#define
PCI_DEVICE_ID_FIR701 0x0D01"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.1.4. scanport

scanport can be used to get the correct device ID is for a chip. It's part of
the hwtools package (on Debian, probably same elsewhere). You just type it in
and it scans the I/O ports from 0x100 to 0x400 - the usual ISA range. Above
0x400 there are shadows of below 0x400 devices, and beyond that there are PCI
devices, so the default is not to scan above 0x400. "Anyway, I had to
manually scan using inb to find my chip's I/O. Fortunately I didn't have to
go far to find it. (Newer sound cards often sit at 0x530ish, with 0x220
reserved for legacy compatibility modes) Normally, if you know where some
device is located you just point the driver at it and the driver probes to
see if it's the device the driver is expecting. Not entirely safe, but much
safer than every driver probing every I/O port looking for something it
thinks it can understand. scanport only does reads, which are usually safe."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.2. Mailing List

Look at the mailing list archivs, whether your problem is already known.
Since August 1999 it the archiv is located at Linux-IrDA mailing list archiv
http://www.pasta.cs.UiT.No/mailman/listinfo/linux-irda . All mails before are
archived at http://www.ita.chalmers.se/~svinto/hypermail/irda/ .

As a last ressort ask in the Linux-IrDA mailing list. You may subscribe at
Linux-IrDA mailing list http://www.pasta.cs.UiT.No/mailman/listinfo/
linux-irda . You are welcome to use this mailing list for posting questions,
answers, bug-reports, patches, suggestions and comments. It would be much
easier to help you if you provide some information. Please include:
uname -a                                                                     
cat /proc/net/irda/irlan                                                     
cat /proc/net/irda/irlap                                                     
irdadump                                                                     
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.3. How to Make Infrared Light Visible

                                      What you don't see gets you.          
                                                           Unknown AuthorEss

If you have a IrDA aware printer, you can point you phone at it and you
should see a light near the IR port light up or flash. If you have a Palm
organizer w/ IR, point it at the phone. If the IR on the phone is in
discovery mode, you should see the "Waiting for Sender" dialog box pop up on
the Palm.

There is a program for the Palm called "IRMonitor" which measures IR
emissions. You can get this off EuroCool or PilotZone. You run the program,
point your Palm at where you think the IR beam should be coming from and if
there are any emissions from that port, they will show up as a spike on the
IrMonitor scrolling graph. I would highly recommend this program to anybody
out there who plays with or works with IR devices.

You may also use a video camera to detect infrared light. But I couldn't
check this yet.

Most of this section is taken from a posting to the Linux/IrDA list by "The
Armadillo with the Mask".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.4. Power Saving

In the specifications of my HP OmniBook 800 it is recommended to turn off the
IR port, if it is not in use, because it may consume up to 10 percent of the
battery time.

If necessary, you may also try to disable the Fast RRs feature in the IrDA
section of the kernel. This option will give you much better latencies but
will consume more power.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.5. Beyond IrDA

5.5.1. Extending Transmission Distance

According to the IrDA specification the range is up to 1 meter. From the
"IrDA Data Link Design Guide" p. 20 by Hewlett-Packard http://www.hp.com/go/
ir : " In some cases it may be desired to increase link distance beyond the 1
meter guaranteed by IrDA. The two ways to do this are to increase transmitted
light intensity, or to increase receiver sensitivity. In order to extend the
link distance, both sensitivity and intensity must be increased for both ends
of the IR link. If it is desired to communicate with a standard IrDA device
that may have minimum transmitter intensity, the receiver intensity must be
increased. The standard IrDA device may also have minimum receiver
sensitivity, so transmitter intensity must also be increased."

Andreas Butz wrote: "This might be a silly question, but has anyone an idea
whether the whole IrDA stack really relies on a two-way connection, or
whether there are some parts of it that could be abused for a one-way
connection, ideally for unreliable data? We're trying to modify some IR
dongles to broadcast information to palm pilots over several meters distance
(cover a whole room), and since we don't want to modify the pilots
themselves, and increasing the sensitivity on the receiver side seems
unlikely to work, we're stuck with a one way link.". Please see the mailing
list archive for details of the discussion.

Sent by Marc Bury " .. just heard about some Philips new scheme for remote
controls: they call it IRDA - Control. This is supposed to be bi-directional,
75 kbps data rate, multiple simultaneous devices (up to 8) and with a minimum
6 meter range!" More information at http://www.irda.org/ .

The german magazine ELEKTOR issued a guide to build a Long Distance IrDA
Dongle (20m, RS232, IrDA 1.0), ELEKTOR 5/97 p. http://www.elektor.de .

"The main problem is that you generally have to make the receiver more
sensitive. Basic physics has the inverse square law: the intensity drops with
the SQUARE of the distance, so going from 1 to 5 meters requires 25x the
power (and battery drain on a portable device), or 25x the sensitivity (and
dynamic range - it still has to be able to work at 3 inches). And if you want
to do it on the other end, it doesn't simply have to be 25x more sensitive,
it must pick up the tiny IrDA pulse needle in a haystack of florescent
lights, screen savers, moving shadows ..."

Someone tried it with a Palm III upgrade board http://home.t-online.de/home/
PSPilot/ppppiii.htm .

Also laser diodes (pulsable) were recommended by K-H.Eischer: But they are
more expensive. And the laser diodes are also dangerous if they have more
than 1 mW. A better solution would be to use lenses to focus the beam. There
is a minimum of absorbtion in the air (I don't know the right frequency) and
you should use IR diodes with this frequency.

James wrote: " Who ever it was wanting to do long distance with IrDA, we've
tried this before. The best approaches are:

 

*wavelan - buy the cards but not the antennas you can make your own with
    equaly good gain as the $9000 type they sell here.
   
*microwave - you can pick up X-band doppler radar modules, tune them
    slightly apart and use the your local TX as the LO for the incomming RX,
    the whole thing behaves like ethernet and you can hook it onto an AUI
    port, this may now be illegal.
   
*ir - Many people sell kits which transmit video over Ir, they come
    complete with the large fresnel lense you need, they manage about 4MHz b/
    w over 100m.
   
*laser diodes - when we looked at these they were a pain, I think elantec
    make decent drivers but modulating them was a big pain, Steve Carcia had
    a series on articles on modulating He-Ne lasers but be careful they have
    lots of volts in them that want to get out and kill you.
   

 

Whatever you choose IrDA might very well be a good choice for a protocol,
given it's one of the few that sensibly copes with simplex."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.5.2. Upcoming Standards (Bluetooth and IrDA)

"More and more people now think that IrDA and Bluetooth will live happily
side by side, and the idea of Bluetooth as the IrDA killer just don't work
anymore. IrDA is still unbeatable in price/performance and with the new
additions to the standards family like AIR and VFIR, it's really good to see
that IrDA is moving in the right direction."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.6. IrDA Network Neighborhood

Laptop-Printer-PDA You can take a little peek at http://irda.sourceforge.net
Drag-n-drop stuff, so you will be able to drop files to your PDA (uses
IrOBEX) or drop files to your printer (uses IrLPT) etc.

Bridging/Routing James wrote: " ... there is a much better way of doing the
briding which is routing. This is entirely user land and requires no kernel
patches.

It's in two parts (you may only need one your milage may vary...) the first
called irdaipcfg does the following:

1) First part is executed as irdaipcfg ifeth ifirlan daemonizes, then looks
for ARP packets on ifirlan, checks that the arp was not generated by the
machine on which it is running. The arp contains the ip address of the
machine on the other end of the irlan (it was generated by the gratuatous arp
in the irlan code). The program then sets up a host route to this ip address
via ifirlan, adds a proxy arp to ifeth for it and generates a gratuatous arp
on ifeth. It writes the ip address of the client in /var/run/host.ifirlan so
you can easily undo all of this from a script.

2) Second part is executed as gratarp ifirlan. Sometimes the gratuatous arp
seems to get lost in the pipe work, gratarp deamonizes and spits out a whole
stream of the things...

I use them as follows: (you can use them to do whatever you like)

On my host (the machine bolted to my local net) irlanx is brought up as
10.192.0.1 with a netmask of 255.255.255.255 and a broadcast of 10.192.0.1 by
my ifup script from /etc/irda/network by irattach. /etc/irda/network then
runs irdaipcfg eth0 irlanx and this does the routing.

From /etc/irda/network
"start")                                                                     
    echo 1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/forwarding                           
    ./ifup ifcfg-${device}                                                   
    /sbin/irdaipcfg ${localnet} ${device}                                    
    ;;                                                                       
"stop")                                                                      
    host=`cat /var/run/host.${device}`                                       
    if [ .$host != . ]; then                                                 
      /sbin/arp -d ${host} dev ${localnet}                                   
      /sbin/route delete ${host} dev ${device}                               
    fi                                                                       
    ./ifdown ifcfg-${device}                                                 
    /sbin/ifconfig ${device} down                                            
    ;;                                                                       
on the client I set up irlan to use an address on my normal subnet
10.32.32.51 but with netmask 255.255.255.255 (not my usual netmask) I have
some static routes which are host 10.192.0.1 dev irlan, and net default gw
10.192.0.1 dev irlan. I run gratarp from the /etc/irda/network, and I can
wander arround my house and not lose telnet and ssh sessions ... they are
sitting in ftp://bullard.esc.cam.ac.uk/pub/irda "

IPv6 AFAIK IPv6 has neighbor discovery mechanismem, but I don't have
information about Linux/IrDA used with IPv6. Please see the mailing list
archive for a discussion of this topic under the subject :
"patch-2.2.7-ac1-irda4" .

DHCP I have got reports that it is possible to use dhcpcd with IrLAN. Please
use latest DHCP software.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.7. Linux/IrDA and APM

Fons Botman wrote: "When I hibernate my HP OmniBook 2000CT, (Fn-12 diskimage
is written to disk, machine turns off completely) with irtty active and turn
it on again, irda does not work. I can see it trying to reply to discovery
frames it receives from a windows box, using irdadump on the OmniBook. but
the windows PC does not see the replies. If I just kill irattach and remove
irtty and serial, and start irattach again, it starts working again. Does
this occur with other linux laptops also? Is it a problem in the serial
device driver? " Also Pedro Figueiredo reported this problem for a Fujitsu
LifeBook 735DX.

Answer by Dag Brattli: "Could you all check if the same thing is happening
when your're using PPP (and not using IrDA). I guess the APM stuff shuts down
the serial port, so that the driver will need to reinitialize it when waking
up again. This is properly implemented by some of the PCMCIA drivers I know
about, but I really don't think the serial driver gets any events from the
APM system.

So here you have your own little kernel project. Start adding APM support to
irport which will be the easiest thing (and also to the FIR drivers), then
you can start adding a patch to the serial driver (if needed). Again I think
the PCMCIA subsystem may be a good source on how to fix it properly."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.8. Performance Testing

netperf is a benchmark that can be used to measure the performance of many
different types of networking including Unix Domain Sockets and TCP and UDP
via BSD Sockets. It provides tests for both unidirectional throughput and
end-to-end latency. http://www.netperf.org/netperf/NetperfPage.html

bing by Pierre Beyssac determines bandwidth on a point-to-point link by
sending ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets and measuring their roundtrip times for
different packet sizes on each end of the link.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.9. IrDA Protocols

5.9.1. IrDA Stack

 


Figure 5-1. IrDA Stack

IrDA Stack.

IrDA Stack.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.9.2. Existing IrDA Protocol Implementations

From Lichen Wang I have taken this remarks:

IrLAP, IrLMP, and TinyTP are pretty stable now. But various individual
implementations may still have quirks.

IrCOMM is widely used, but Microsoft vowed to drop it and use IrSocket only.

IrObex, IrMC, IrTran-P, etc. are showing up in various devices. The supports
on PC are segmented and sometimes very poor.

New IrDA Protocol Development AIR is pushed mainly by IBM. You get wider
angle and longer distance (10M?) but may be at lower data rate. You can also
time-multiplex this already slow channel. In my opinion the benefit to the
user is very little. AIR hardware and software changes are costly. I think
you will have to wait for a long time, if ever, to see any product using AIR.

IrBUS is pushed mainly by Sharp. It is aimed at remote control, IR keyboard,
etc., not for data communication. I think if Sharp succeed, you may see IrBUS
in set-top boxes, web-tv, etc. If and when these devices reaches a critical
mass, some PC may incorporate IrBUS in order to control these devices.

VFIR is the latest. The benefit is higher data rate (16 Mbps). Unlike AIR and
IrBUS, the software changes for VFIR are minimum. The changes are mainly in
hardware.

Summary In summary, I do not think we need to wait in anticipation of new
IrDA protocols. A easy to install and solid implementation of the existing
IrDA protocols is the cutting edge!.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.10. Known Bugs

If you find a bug, please send a bug report to the mailing list, including
dmesg output, and which Linux version, and hardware you are using. Thank you!

Sometimes IrCOMM fails to connect (especially when both devices discover each
other. You can disable discovering with echo 0 >/proc/sys/net/irda/discovery)

A CR (carriage return) character cannot be transfered between two linux boxes
via IrCOMM with cat file >/dev/ircomm0 and cat /dev/ircomm0. It causes a
strange thing and freezes your Linux box. Compiling the pc87108 device driver
non modular crashes the kernel on boot. Temporary solution: compile the
driver as a module

IrOBEX may eat some data on receive. The bug is most probably in the
user-space side of IrOBEX.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.11. FAQ

 

*irport versus irtty: I never used irport because irtty works for me, but
    it should not matter which low level driver you use. I used successfully
    irtty, nsc-ircc and irda-usb (depending on my hardware).
   
*Q1 - Question: I do not know anything about ports and irqs. What should I
    do? 
   
*Answer: PART A: Hardware settings - 1 Have a look at your hardware
    specs!!! If not available look at the support page of your vendor, or
    contact the support hotline. You might also find the information in one
    of the hardware surveys mentioned above. - 2 Use a current BIOS. Usually
    available at the support page of your vendor. - 3 Try setserial /dev/
    ttyS? -g -a | egrep 16550A. One of the shown devices is probably the one
    you are looking for. Usually it is the second one, but with no guarantee.
    - 4 Note: What seems like an UART is physically the IrDA controller. For
    my HP Omnibook 800 this is the VLSI VL82C147 PCI - IrDA controller. These
    controllers should behave up to 115 200 bps like UART's. But sometimes it
    is very difficult to get the right configuration. PART B: How to tell the
    kernel about the hardware settings -4 cat /proc/ioports to see which
    ports are already in use. -5 cat /proc/interrupts to see which interrupts
    are already in use. -6 Make ports and interrupts available for use with
    the IR device, e.g. stop the PCMCIA service or include a line like this
    in /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia: PCIC_OPTS="irq_list=3,4,5,7,9,10,12,14,15" -7
    Now try to guess what the right interrupt and port is. Use setserial /dev
    /ttySx irq M port 0xNNNN to tell the kernel. If there is more then one
    possible chance try them all (Note: As mentioned in the Serial-HOWTO you
    should not try irq 0, 1, 6, 8, 13, 14). -8 If you were successful please
    send these parameters to the author, because I would like to include them
    in the Infrared Hardware Survey. -9 Good luck. It might also be necessary
    to fine tune the IR serial port with setserial, e.g., setserial /dev/
    ttyS0 spd_vhi (speed rate 115200).
   
*Q3 - Question: I get a message like tcsetattr read/write error in /var/
    log/messages. 
   
*Answer: Caused probably by wrong /dev/ttyS* or wrong irq or port. 
   
*Q4 - Question: Every setting seems alright, because I get the appropriate
    messages. But it still does not work.
   
*Answer: Move the devices to within 0.5 meter (1.5 feet). Check that only
    one application is using the infrared port. Check that both devices are
    using the same protocol, such as IrOBEX or IrCOMM.
   
*Q7 - Question by Ho Chin Keong: Is there other way of setting up
    communication between the 2 laptops besides setting up a LAN route
    between the two?
   
*Answer by Dag Brattli: Yes and no! One of the IrDA standard, IrCOMM
    permits you to emulate a serial cable between two laptops, so you can use
    any application written for serial ports (terminals, PPP, slip, etc.).
    This is however not yet implemented in Linux/IrDA. The IrLPT (printer)
    support is actually a subset of IrCOMM, so some of it is working!
   
*Q8 - Question by Ho Chin Keong: If I block the infrared path deliberately
    for more than 10 seconds, the connection could not re-establish. I have
    to kill the irattach and restart the whole procedure to start the
    infrared route. The connection could be maintained, however, if the
    blocking is less than 10 seconds. Is this part of the design or a bug? Is
    there any way whereby we can lengthen this time limit from 10 s to longer
    or infinitely?
   
*Answer by Thomas Davis: This seems to be a bug in the primary side of the
    IrLAP/IrLMP code. It appears not to send the reset/disconnect notice all
    the way back up the stack. You'll notice it when IrLPT gets stuck in the
    query mode while you were trying to talk to a printer, and disconnected/
    interrupted it when it was handshaking. (and now, it shows up in the
    IrLAN portion)
   
*Q11 - Is there any IrDA support for BSD?
   
*Answer: Linux/IrDA seems to be the only available GPL source yet.
   
*Q12 - By Rui Oliveira: I am having a problem connecting a PalmIII to a
    Linux box with an Actisys 220L adapter. With a motherboard adapter (no
    brand but, I think, similar to the Actisys 210L) I simply redirect a
    pilot syncronization tool (pilot-xfer) to /dev/ttyS1 which has the ir
    adapter attached and, using IrLink in SIR mode, I can get the Linux box
    to talk with the PalmIII. Trying the above through a serial port with a
    serial-irda Actisys 220L adapter I can't get this to work. My question is
    :What happens if one just throws data into a serial port with a irda
    adapter? 
   
*Answer by Lichen Wang: In terms of hardware, IrDA SIR needs a serializer-
    deserializer, an encoder-decoder, and a transceiver. The UART that drives
    the COM port of any PC is a serializer-deserializer. In some PC, there is
    also an encoder-decoder which can be enabled or disabled by the BIOS.
    When it is disabled, the COM port is usable as an old COM port. When the
    encoder-decoder is enabled, usually the COM port is no longer usable but
    an IrDA port is now usable instead. Actisys IR-210 is a SIR transceiver
    and thus can be used if the PC has this kind of UART with an IrDA
    encoder-decoder and the BIOS has enabled it. Under this hardware
    configuration, you need to tell the Windows setup program that you have
    "standard infrared devices" and with "Built-in Infrared port on laptop or
    desktop". Actisys IR-220, on the other hand, includes both the
    encoder-decoder and the transceiver. It is designed to be used with a
    regular UART. If the UART in the PC has also the encoder-decoder
    built-in, you must use BIOS to disable that. Under either of this
    hardware configuration, you need to tell the Windows setup program that
    you have an "ACTiSYS" manufactured "ACT-IR220L Infrared Wireless
    Interface". To answer your question: In addition to throwing data at the
    serial port, you need to tell the UART and the encoder-decoder what data
    rate to use. In the case of a built-in encoder-decoder, when you set the
    data rate of the UART, the encoder-decode also get set correctly. In the
    case a separate encoder-decoder, you need to tell both of them the data
    rate separatly. 
   
*Q13 - If I try to make a connection, say telnet, it takes an incredibly
    long time for the login prompt to appear. 
   
*Answers by Renaud Baldura, Dag Brattli and Hee Thong: ... it's a DNS
    problem. The resolver times out trying to reverse-resolve the IP address
    of your incoming connection. I think just renaming /etc/resolv.conf to
    something else takes care of it. ... or add some static bindings in /etc/
    hosts for the machines you want to access in your ad-hoc network. That
    should avoid the DNS lookups. ... If both machines are in a private test
    environment, put the following line in the /etc/host.conf, order hosts,
    bind. This will make the machine check the /etc/host file before doing a
    DNS lookup. Remember to update the host file on both machines to reflect
    the IP and host names of the 2 machines.
   
*Q14 - Question by David LaPorte: I was wondering if anyone has had any
    success getting the irda port on the Toshiba Tecra 740cdt working. ...
    I've read that it should show up at IRQ 11, ttyS2. Well, I have a PCMCIA
    modem which steals ttyS2 and the PCMCIA controller steals IRQ 11. Does
    anyone have any suggestions?
   
*Answer by Dag Brattli: If you still have Win95 on your machine, you
    should go to the device manager and change the PnP setup for the IrDA
    port (something else than the stuff your're already using). You could for
    example move away ttyS1 (in Win95), so that it uses the values that the
    PCMCIA card is going to steal, and then use the settings from ttyS1 for
    ttyS2.
    dagbnb ~/linux/test/ > cat /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia                 
    PCMCIA=yes                                                       
    PCIC=i82365                                                      
    PCIC_OPTS="irq_list=7,9,10"                                      
    CORE_OPTS=                                                       
    ... should make sure the PCMCIA controller stays away from irq 11. Also
    make sure that the IrDA port is enabled in Win95 since it's disabled by
    default.
   

 

II. Infrared Remote Control

Table of Contents
6. Introduction
7. Linux Infrared Remote Control - LIRC
8. Lego Mindstorm
9. Serial Infrared Remote Controller
10. Infrared Tools for the COREL Netwinder PC
11. ir
12. irmctl
13. IRManager
14. irXxD
15. gmd
16. Infrared Remote Control - IrDA

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 6. Introduction

Remote control via infrared is not the aim of the Linux/IrDA project but is
included in this HOWTO to cover "Linux and Infrared" more completely. I found
some projects which are working on this topic. You may find some links to
current information at [http://mobilix.org] MobiliX.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 7. Linux Infrared Remote Control - LIRC

LIRC is a package that supports receiving and sending IR signals of the most
common IR remote controls. It contains a device driver for hardware connected
to the serial port, a daemon that decodes and sends IR signals using this
device driver, a mouse daemon that translates IR signals to mouse movements
and a couple of user programs that allow to control your computer with a
remote control. The IR hardware can be either selfmade or choosen from a
variety of commercial solutions. Takahide Higuchi wrote about LIRC: "It's
great, and it seems almost complete solution, but it seems there is almost
nothing supporting hardware on the market (or need to solder some special
circuit ... it is hard work for many people to do so). I believe that LIRC
will be more popular if consumer IR support is implemented in FastIR drivers
and some common API (for example, a raw IrSocket and common ioctls) is made!
". http://www.lirc.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 8. Lego Mindstorm

Quoting the [http://www.linuxdoc.org] Lego Mindstorm with Linux Mini-HOWTO by
Luis Villa:" In case you don't know, the Lego Mindstorms Kit is a robotics
kit from The Lego Group that retails for about 200 US dollars. For that, you
get a lot of Lego pieces, a large brick containing a CPU, an LCD, and some
connectors (known as the RCX), a couple of motors, and some light and touch
sensors that allow you to interact with the outside world. ..."

"All communication to the RCX is done via the IR tower, which is connected to
the machine via a serial port. As a result, if you have no serial port
connection, you will be unable to use the RCX unless you can buy an adapter.
Furthermore, under certain circumstances, there may be problems with IRQs or
serial port conflicts. This is particularly likely if your modem uses /dev/
ttyS0."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 9. Serial Infrared Remote Controller

This is a simple, cheap device that can be connected to any serial port to
control most components that have infrared remote controls. It was designed
and built on a solderless breadboard and is finally designed as a PC board.
You may find this package at http://www.armory.com/~spcecdt/remote/
remote.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 10. Infrared Tools for the COREL Netwinder PC

Ryan Shillington wrote some tools to control the COREL Netwinder via
infrared, for example:

Server Side for the Corel Palm Administrator (deamon). It depends on having
ir-simple installed and up and running. With this you can check and change IP
addresses, Gateway addresses, setup eth1, etc. You can also run simple
commands AND you can check the Temperature, Memory, Load averages, etc.

Client Side for the Corel Palm Administrator. You can also run simple
commands AND you can check the Temperature, Memory, Load averages, etc.

A very basic infrared device driver. This does not support IrDA (only
unreliable transfers). It looks specifically for Remote Control signals (and
Keyboard, etc.). It blocks and passes data up very differently.

You may find the tools at http://www.netwinder.org/~ryansh/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 11. ir

ir is an interface program to Chris Dodge's RedRat 2 infrared controller to
send and receive infrared signals to/from consumer devices like TV's, VCR's,
cable boxes, and stereos. It is written in Perl. It uses only the basic Perl
constructs and no external packages, so it should work on any platform that
supports Perl and serial communications. It can be accessed via the command
line or cron, as an email handler (through aliases), or as a cgi script which
will automatically generate a form with all possible codes. It has macro
capability so one command can send a series of IR signals. With an X-10's
IR543, it can be used to control X10 devices, too. http://
kramer.ne.mediaone.net/ir/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 12. irmctl

irmctl is a utility daemon to control your favorite non-IRDA infrared
receiver. For the moment, only irman (through libirman) is supported. http://
irmctl.sourceforge.net/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 13. IRManager

[http://jaqr.student.utwente.nl/releases/irmanager/] IRManager is a Linux
daemon to make advanced use of an IRMan infrared receiver. It forwards IR
signals to (multiple) native IRMan applications, and can be used with your
own scripts and applications. It also has a mapping system and its advanced
configuration options make it the most flexible and easy way to remote
control your computer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 14. irXxD

irXxD is a library for sending/receiving infrared remote control codes. It
includes kernel 2.0 and 2.2 modules for receiving/sending IR codes under
Linux, and various support for other operating systems. http://home.iae.nl/
users/leonvs/projects/index.html#irxxd
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 15. gmd

This software makes it a lot easier to use the RedRat2 to control an A/V
stack. I use mine to control my DVD/CD/VCR/TV and ReplayTV. I also wrote some
additional tools to make using the ReplayTV easier(Channel selector, advanced
search utilities, ...). The web site is at: http://www.slip.net/~gmd/RedRat/
index.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 16. Infrared Remote Control - IrDA

Two of the above mentioned projects use some kind of selfmade dongle for
infrared remote control. There is also a description to build a serial IrDA
dongle by yourself in the german ELEKTOR 5/97 p. 28 magazine. Maybe someone
can merge these two kind of dongles together.

For a discussion of the relation between Infrared Remote Control and IrDA I
quote from the Linux/IrDA mailing list (shortend and modified by wh):

Ryan Shillington wrote: "Remote IR and ASK-IR are very different from FIR or
MIR or SIR.

Remote IR and ASK-IR are very low speed and low frequency (but very long
range) uses for IR. They operate around 2400 baud.

SIR operates at higher rates, and is meant for long range transmission where
you need more than a few characters pass through (unlike a remote control).

MIR is a little faster (less range), but with speeds up to 1.15 Mbps, and FIR
(where the devices have to be practically touching) is 4Mbps. The range is
inversely proportional to the speed you can send data at.

I'm working on drivers for Remote-IR, but you should know that your IR stuff
has to support it. Look for protocols like NEC, RC-5 or RC-0 (those are the
most common ones).

You can use SIR to receive Remote Control signals. Set your baud rate nice
and low and data will come through. BUT, from my experience, it's not the
RIGHT data. It's not being analyzed in the right way, and as such, you can't
compute the checksums or check it with its complement.

I have managed to get data in (using SIR) with remote controls. I have been
told that SIR will read the remote control stuff differently depending on
temperature (although I have never had that experience). "

Lichen Wang wrote in response: "The so-called ASKIR in most laptops etc. is
not meant for remote IR devices. ASKIR is meant for Sharp Wizard and Zauaus
PDAs and some of Sharp's notebook PCs. Sharp stated this long before IrDA was
established and is still supporting it to maintain backward compatibility.
Apple's Newton had this capability at one time, too.

Briefly, ASKIR uses 9.6 Kbps (19.2 and 38.4 Kbps are also possible)
asynchronous data format of 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, and odd parity. The
start bit as well as all 0 bit in data/parity are transmitted as IR square
wave at 500 KHz (DASK sub-carrier). The stop bit as well as all 1 bit in data
/parity are represented by the absence of any IR transmission.

As you can see, this is totally incompatible with existing IR remote control.
[..]

True. Not only can you use SIR hardware to receive, you can transmit, too. Of
course, there are some limitations.

Most IR remote controls use 38 KHz sub-carrier. 3 times 38 is 114, very close
to 115.2. You can set the UART to operate at 115.2 Kbps, 7 data bits, no
parity, and 1 stop bit - a total of 9 bits. Each 3 cycles of the 38 KHz
sub-carrier can be received or transmitted as a byte of 0x5B.

There are some physical limitations in addition to the fact that the
sub-carrier must be 38 KHz. The SIR receiver is not as sensitive to 38 KHz as
the IR remote receiver designed for that. The SIR transmitter has a much
lower duty cycle and thus can not emit a strong sub-carrier either.

IR remote encodes the control signal by turning on and off the sub-carrier at
certain specific patterns. Now that you can transmit and receive the
sub-carrier, what remains is all in timing.

For transmit, you have to know how many consecutive bytes of 0x5B to send for
each burst of the sub-carrier, and how long to be quiet between the bursts.

For receive, you have to know how many of the 0x5Bs you received are
consecutive, and how long the gaps were between these groups of consecutive
bytes. [..]

My experience with the IrDA link distance of SIR, MIR and FIR is somewhat
different from what Ryan said. [..]

SIR, MIR and FIR should all work from 0 to 100 cm but in practice:

(a) Some devices may have problems at LONG distances.

When possible, place the two communicating devices no more than 50 cm apart.
Low power devices, such as pagers, phones, etc. may have even shorter ranges
despite the fact that they use SIR instead of MIR or FIR.

(b) Some devices may have problems at SHORT distances.

Place the two devices at least a few cm apart. Putting the two devices too
close to each other can cause troubles.

It is somewhat intuitive that when the link is not reliable we put the two
devices closer together. But it is counterintuitive that too close is not
good either. The reason is that the light intensity at 1 cm is 10.000 times
brighter than that at 100 cm. At 0.5 cm, it is 40.000 times, etc. The IR
receiver manufacturers have difficulties to cover this huge dynamic range. We
all have problems reading under a 10 W light bulb, but imagine how it feels
under a 100.000 W light!

The IrDA Physical Layer is totally incompatible with the DASK modulation used
in IR remote controls. Thus it is not possible to use the same controller
function for both FIR and remote control. However, practically all FIR
controller chips do include some additional functions to support remote
control. National, SMC, and Winbond (just to name a few) all have such I/O
chips.

The IR transmitter for FIR and remote control are very similar. I have tried
a standard FIR transmitter. It can reach 10 meters for remote control
purpose. Thus it performs just as good as transmitters designed for remote
control.

The IR receiver for FIR and remote control are somewhat different. A FIR
receiver can receive remote control signals but can reach only 1 meter
whereas receivers designed for remote control typically can reach 10 meters.

I have an ISA bus adapter with a National I/O chip that supports both FIR and
remote control. I also have IR Dongles that include both FIR and remote
control receivers. (Plus a transmitter for both modes.) I cannot find any
software to support remote control functions. I did my own experiments in DOS
(I cannot run Linux yet.) Anybody interest in this? "

Benny Amorsen wrote: "I have a laptop that is supposed to support ASKIR. The
mode of the infrared port can be switched to ASKIR in the BIOS. Having to
reboot to switch the mode in the BIOS makes it useless, though, so someone
would have to find a way to switch on the fly. "

Dag Brattli wrote: It should be possible to use IrControl (formerly IrBus)
for IrDA compliant remote controls. I currently don't know about any remote
controls using IrControl standard, but there should be some out there (anyone
else who knows better?). You should go to the [http://www.irda.org] Linux/
IrDA site and get the physical layer standard (which includes IrControl I
think).

"Normal" IrDA (using IrLAP) is _not_ well suited for remote control because
of the connection oriented nature (and just supports 9600bps for
connectionless use). The reason for the limited range is eye-safety they say
(but I currently don't know why CIR works better using the same power). I
have however seen laptops connect at 4-5 meters (but I don't think that any
high speed communication would be possible).

Most IrDA chipsets are capable of CIR operation, and it is quite easy to
modify the drivers so they talk CIR. Takahide Higuchi has started to look at
IrSockets and it would be great if we could open a "raw" Ir(DA) socket which
then could send and receive CIR packets. Then all the CIR applications could
live in userspace.

I know that Corel is interested in using CIR for controlling the NetWinder
(and they actually have running code). Take a look at http://www.slashdot.org
/articles/98/12/05/0916216.shtml or http://www.netwinder.org/~ryansh

From the "IrDA Data Link Design Guide" p. 21 by Hewlett-Packard http://
www.hp.com/go/ir : " It is possible to transmit and receive signals other
than IrDA signals with Hewlett-Packard IR transceivers. For implementation
details, please refer to the Application Note, Transceiver Performance with
ASK and TV Remote Signals."

From the IR-MAN page http://www.usuarios.com/ib308564/irda.html :

Fortunately, many IrDA devices are compatible with the 38-kbps ASK modulation
used in TV remotes. This means that they can work with such kind of infrared
type signals. ... However, it seems that there are still many portable
computers that can't receive TV infrared stuff.

For desktop computers, there exist two options, depending on the motherboard
you have. Usually a Pentium MoBo has an I/O chipset ready for infrared
communication. There is a special connector where you can connect the
transducer. The other option is buying a serial type transceiver that
connects to the standard serial port (RS-232) of the computer. ... PC Remote
Control has been tested with success using both type of IrDA devices:

1) IRmate IR-210 Serial Port Infrared Adapter. ... The serial port speed at
wich the device sends recognizable data values is 2400 bps. I don't know if
this speed will be the same for all the adapters of this type or is an unique
characteristic of this model.

Look at the examples of data values received to see how similar are them.
There are some infrared commands that change a lot every time, difficulting
the recognition. In such cases, a great tolerance in the comparison could be
used, but the risk of confusion between different commands will be increased.
An apropiate tolerance value for almost all cases is 20.

2) Actisys IR2000L connected to an Asus P2B motherboard. ... There are
several serial port speeds that work well, although 4800 bps seems to be the
best one. Other adapters of this same type work also well using this speed.
Take a look at the samples of data sequences received using this device. Some
remote buttons send exactly the same sequence and it's impossible to
distinguish between them at all.

3) Asus IR-eye connected to the same MoBo as above. It works as well as the
Actisys device.

TV remotes send commands only one way, in a low-speed burst for distances of
up to 30 feet. They use directed IR with LEDs that have a moderate cone angle
to improve ease-of-use characteristics. Cordless connectivity via IrDA
transfers files, point-to-point and bidirectionally, in a high-speed burst
for short distances using directed IR with LEDs having a narrow cone angle.
IrDA transmissions require relatively careful aiming, and they're easy to
block. For this reason, don't expect a great distance while working with the
remote unit.

Alessio Massaro : wrote: " IrDA doesn't talk to tv-remotes, but it does have
the IrCOMM layer to emulate a serial i/f. My guess is that to get LIRC
working with it, you should just need ... to read from the IrCOMM virtual
serial device (as you would with a /dev/cua or whatever) and use a remote
that can be seen by your dongle+IrDAheader pair."

Answer by Dag Brattli: "You are talking about being normal serial ports, but
that is something at least I have choosen IrDA not to be. I have implemented
all the device drivers as network device drivers, so things are a bit
different (more frame oriented). The device drivers deliver IrDA frames and
currently nothing else.

But I don't think that we must have a tty interface to the IrDA device
drivers in order to support more RAW reads and writes. And btw. forget about
IrCOMM, it has nothing to do with this issue.

I have actually already implemented support for raw reads and writes for the
device drivers, since some of the dongles require this."

III. Appendix

Table of Contents
A. Credits
B. Revision History
C. Serial Infrared Port Sniffers
    C.1. Sniffer by Gerd Knorr
    C.2. sersniff
   
   
D. Infrared Light and Eye Safety
E. Copyrights, Disclaimer, Trademarks
    E.1. Disclaimer and Trademarks
    E.2. Copyrights
    E.3. GNU Free Documentation License - GFDL
        E.3.1. 0. PREAMBLE
        E.3.2. 1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
        E.3.3. 2. VERBATIM COPYING
        E.3.4. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
        E.3.5. 4. MODIFICATIONS
        E.3.6. 5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
        E.3.7. 6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
        E.3.8. 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
        E.3.9. 8. TRANSLATION
        E.3.10. 9. TERMINATION
        E.3.11. 10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
       
       
   
   

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appendix A. Credits

Thanks to:

* The members of the Linux-IrDA mailing list. * The writers of the other
HOWTOs which gave me many inspirations. * The developers of the SGML-Tools
which provided some means to write a HOWTO. * Benny Amorsen * The Armadillo
with the Mask * Mathieu Arnold * Fons Botman * Philip Blundell * Dag Brattli
- Linux/IrDA core team * David Burley * Andreas Butz * Edgardo Calabrese > *
Andrew Chadwick * Ho Chin Keong * Claudiu Costin * Stefan Dahlke * Thomas
Davis - Linux/IrDA core team * Richard Donkin * Ha Duong Minh * Ales Dryak *
K-H. Eischer * Ove Ewerlid * Timo Felbinger * Tollef Fog Heen * Christian
Gennerat * Gerhard Gonter * Mike Groeneweg * Bjoern Hansson * Takahide
Higuchi - Linux/IrDA core team * Jon Howell * Gerd Knorr * Arthur Tyde and
Bryan Abshier from Linuxcare Inc. * Joonas Lehtinen * Mark Lewis * Florian
Lohoff * Pawel Machek * James McKenzie * Alessio Massaro * Harald Milz *
Bjoern Mork * Tang Ning * Rui Oliveira * Igor Pesando * Raj Rijhwani *
Christian Rishoej * Wessel de Roode * Markus Schill * Ryan Shillington *
Richard Titmuss * Jean Tourrilhes * Carlos Vidal * Lichen Wang * Guenther
Wieser * Toni van de Wiel * Ralf Zabka * Christian Zoz

Sorry I didn't start to follow the credits when starting the HOWTO, so
probably I forgot somebody.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Appendix B. Revision History

 

*v0.1 to v0.4a, 19 March 1998 to 4 August 1998, drafts, not included in
    the LDP 
   
*v1.0, 14 August 1998, release to the LDP 
   
*v1.1, 18 August 1998, added info about IrCOMM patch by Takahide Higuchi,
    minor changes
   
*v1.2, 24 August 1998, updated to linux-irda-1998-08-20 snapshot, added
    FIR section and revision history, minor changes
   
*v1.3, 27 September 1998, added sections about multiple instances,
    cellular phones, digital cameras,Linux to Linux connection, the cutting
    edge - CVS, power saving; some changes in general configuration section,
    changes in hardware survey section, minor changes
   
*v1.4, 11 October 1998, better description of IrCOMM support, changes in
    dongle connection section, changes in Palm III section, minor changes
   
*v1.5, 12 October 1998, minor changes
   
*v1.6, 26 October 1998, section about IrManager added, updated to the 
    linux-irda-1998-10-21 snapshot, changed dongle connection section, minor
    changes
   
*v1.7, 1 November 1998, added remote control section, changed dongle
    connection section, minor changes
   
*v2.0, 9 January 1999, nearly complete rewrite and rearrangement according
    to the new structure of Linux/IR which is included into the kernel since
    2.1.131, added info about BIOS support into dongle connection section,
    configuration tool section and CVS section removed
   
*v2.1, 13 January 1999, minor changes
   
*v2.2, 26 January 1999, project name changed from Linux/IR to Linux/IrDA,
    extended the Troubleshooting chapter, changed the order of the Known Bugs
    chapter after the Troubleshooting chapter, removed some lint 
   
*v2.3, 4 February 1999, added chapter about Eye Safety written by Andreas
    Butz; spell checking, reworking of Kernel Parameters chapter and
    additional information by Andreas Butz; minor changes 
   
*v2.4, 9 February 1999, changed information about applying a patch file 
   
*v2.5, 12 March 1999; new URL for Linux/IrDA; added chapters about Big
    Endian support, irdaping, irdadump and Beyond IrDA - Extending
    Transmission Distance; chapter Obtaining Information about the Infrared
    Port in Laptops improved; added many information provided by Fons Botman
    to Windows chapter; added SMP chapter; informations about Ericsson SH888
    added; removed obsolete FAQs; minor changes 
   
*v2.6, 6 April 1999, added chapters Connection to Docking Station,
    Connection to Keyboard and Connection via Serial Cable, minor changes 
   
*v2.7, 11 June 1999 started chapter Upcoming Standards (Bluetooth and
    IrDA), added annotations about CORBA to GUI chapter, minor information
    about Nokia cellular phones added, added appendix Serial Infrared Port
    Sniffer, started IrDA Network Neighborhood section, started Connection to
    Psion 5 chapter and appendix C, minor additions to LIRC chapter, minor
    changes 
   
*v2.8, 20 September 1999, added LiRC mailing list, changed <htmlurl ... >
    tag to <url ...>, changed format of conf.modules entries, addition to
    hardware detection (PCMCIA), added IrDA mailing list, changed address of
    Linux-IrDA mailing list, minor additions to multiple instances section,
    added URL of French translation, added new sersniff to Appendix B, added
    section about precompiled packages, added Palm III Connection to Thinkpad
    600 chapter, minor changes 
   
*v2.9, 21 September 1999, changes in Printer Connection chapter,
    spellchecking, added connection to Siemens S25, minor changes 
   
*v2.10, 2 November 1999, minor changes 
   
*v2.11, 9 March 2000, added links to the 'irctl' and 'IRManager' infrared
    control programs, new base URL of the document, new chapter Connecting
    from Linux to WinCE courtesy from Arthur Tyde and Bryan Abshier of
    Linuxcare Inc., link to IrDA-Java interface added, link to HOWTO about
    Toshiba and IrDA added courtesy from Guenther Wieser, more information
    about a connection to S25 courtesy by Timo Felbinger, links to AT
    commands for cellular phones added, new chapter Code History, link to
    SH888 phone book tool, a short survey of IrDA protocols courtesy from
    Lichen Wang, minor changes 
   
*v3.0, 5 November 2000, format changed to DocBook , license changed to GNU
    Free Documentation License - GFDL, title changed from IR-HOWTO to
    Infrared-HOWTO, new document URL, links to Linux/IrDA updated
   
*v3.1, 8 November 2000, links updated, changed to DocBook 3.1
   
*v3.2, 21 March 2001, obsolet references to irmanager, /dev/irnine and
    wrong device numbers removed, changes according to kernel 2.4.x applied,
    extensive proof-reading and testing, new links to e-Squirt added, new
    chapter about module options, new chapter about null modem connection,
    sections reordered and cleaned up, other links updated
   
*v3.3, 22 April 2001, included docs from 2.4.3 kernel, removed references
    to obsolet stuff, minor changes
   

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

Appendix C. Serial Infrared Port Sniffers

C.1. Sniffer by Gerd Knorr

This programm is a courtesy by Gerd Knorr. You may use it to sniff the
traffic which is going trough your IrDA port for details of the protocol
(change the default ttyS1 in the source if necessary):

 
#include <stdio.h>                                                           
#include <stdlib.h>                                                          
#include <unistd.h>                                                          
#include <string.h>                                                          
#include <fcntl.h>                                                           
#include <termios.h>                                                         
#include <ctype.h>                                                           
#include <sys/types.h>                                                       
#include <sys/time.h>                                                        
#include <sys/ioctl.h>                                                       
                                                                             
#define BUFSIZE 1024                                                         
                                                                             
int                                                                          
read_and_print(int fd, int sec, int usec)                                    
{                                                                            
    int         rc,l,i;                                                      
    char        buf[BUFSIZE+1];                                              
    fd_set      set;                                                         
    struct timeval  tv;                                                      
                                                                             
    if (sec || usec) {                                                       
    FD_ZERO(&set);                                                           
    FD_SET(fd,&set);                                                         
    tv.tv_sec  = sec;                                                        
                                                                             
    tv.tv_usec = usec;                                                       
    if (0 == select(fd+1,&set,NULL,NULL,&tv))                                
        return -1;                                                           
    }                                                                        
                                                                             
    switch (rc = read(fd,buf,BUFSIZE)) {                                     
    case 0:                                                                  
    printf("EOF");                                                           
    exit(0);                                                                 
    break;                                                                   
    case -1:                                                                 
    perror("read");                                                          
    exit(1);                                                                 
    default:                                                                 
    for (l = 0; l < rc; l+= 16) {                                            
        printf("%04x  ",l);                                                  
        for (i = l; i < l+16; i++) {                                         
        if (i < rc)                                                          
            printf("%02x ",buf[i]);                                          
        else                                                                 
            printf("-- ");                                                   
        if ((i%4) == 3)                                                      
            printf(" ");                                                     
        }                                                                    
        for (i = l; i < l+16; i++) {                                         
                                                                             
        if (i < rc)                                                          
            printf("%c",isalnum(buf[i]) ? buf[i] : '.');                     
        }                                                                    
        printf("\n");                                                        
    }                                                                        
    break;                                                                   
    }                                                                        
    return rc;                                                               
}                                                                            
                                                                             
void                                                                         
setlines(int fd, int rts, int dtr)                                           
{                                                                            
    int lines = 0;                                                           
                                                                             
    if (rts) lines |= TIOCM_RTS;                                             
    if (dtr) lines |= TIOCM_DTR;                                             
                                                                             
    ioctl(fd,TIOCMSET,&lines);                                               
}                                                                            
                                                                             
int main(int argc, char *argv[])                                             
{                                                                            
    int         ser,i;                                                       
    struct termios      saved_attributes,tattr;                              
    struct winsize      win;                                                 
    char        buf[16];                                                     
                                                                             
    if (-1 == (ser = open("/dev/ttyS1",O_RDWR))) {                           
    perror("open /dev/ttyS1");                                               
    exit(1);                                                                 
    }                                                                        
                                                                             
    /* Set the terminal mode */                                              
    tcgetattr (ser, &tattr);                                                 
    cfmakeraw (&tattr);                                                      
    cfsetospeed (&tattr,B9600);                                              
    cfsetispeed (&tattr,B9600);                                              
    tcsetattr (ser, 0, &tattr);                                              
                                                                             
    setlines(ser,0,0);                                                       
#if 0                                                                        
    tcsendbreak(ser,0);                                                      
#endif                                                                       
                                                                             
    /* main loop */                                                          
    fprintf(stderr,"setup done\n");                                          
    while (-1 != read_and_print(ser,30,0)) {                                 
    usleep(100000);                                                          
    }                                                                        
                                                                             
    return 0;                                                                
}                                                                            
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

C.2. sersniff

Written by Jonathan McDowell [http://www.earth.li/projectpurple/progs/
sersniff.html] sersniff is a simple program to tunnel/sniff between 2 serial
ports. The program was written to aid with the decoding of the protocol used
by the Nokia 9000i Communicator to talk to the NServer software Nokia
provides, which only runs under Windows.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Appendix D. Infrared Light and Eye Safety

This section summarizes some ideas and thoughts that were exchanged on the
Linux/IrDA mailing list. It is not medically wellfounded, and whoever has
better evidence or some more wellfounded source of information is encouraged
to contribute it to this HOWTO.

The IrDA spec says that the range of IrDA devices has been limited to 1m for
reasons of eye safety. Another plausible assumption is that power consumption
and IR pollution/crosstalk were reasons for this limitation. In principle
there could be danger for the eye, because infrared light is not registered
by the eye, and thus the pupil won't close in order to protect the retina
from bright IR light sources. This is the same situation as with UV light,
which will cause snow blindness eventually, but in contrast to UV light, IR
light contains much less harmful energy due to its longer wavelength.

The only legal restrictions and medical advices we were able to find on the
web were concerned with infrared emissions of heat lamps or in the welding
process and IEC 825-1 (CENELEC EN60825-1). This suggests that IR light as
emitted by IrDA devices will be harmless, since even the peak power emitted
by strong IR LEDs (ca. 300mW) is several orders of magnitude below the power
emitted by medical IR heat lamps (up to 500W). For these, however, you are
supposed to wear protective goggles, so maybe if you are looking straight
into 1.000 infrared LEDs flashing at once, you should do so, too. The effect
of infrared light is mostly heat, though, and not an alteration or
destruction of the biological cell structure, such as caused by UV light.
Though in the specs for the HP OmniBook 800 Hewlett-Packard recommends not to
look directly into the IR LED.

As stated above, this discussion is only based on guesswork and common sense
assumptions about the data found in IR LED and heat lamp specs. If anybody
with a better medical knowledge can comment on this, please do so!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Appendix E. Copyrights, Disclaimer, Trademarks

E.1. Disclaimer and Trademarks

This is free documentation. It is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but without any warranty. The information in this document is correct
to the best of my knowledge, but there's a always a chance I've made some
mistakes, so don't follow everything too blindly, especially if it seems
wrong. Nothing here should have a detrimental effect on your computer, but
just in case I take no responsibility for any damages incurred from the use
of the information contained herein.

Though I hope trademarks will be superfluous sometimes (you may see what I
mean at [http://www.opensource.org/osd.html] Open Source Definition ), I
declare: If certain words are trademarks, the context should make it clear to
whom they belong. For example "MS Windows NT" implies that "Windows NT"
belongs to Microsoft (MS). "Mac" is a trademark by Apple Computer. Many of
the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their
products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this
book, and I was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been
printed in caps or initial caps. All trademarks belong to their respective
owners.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.2. Copyrights

For all chapters 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 the
Invariant Sections being "Preface" and "Credits", with the Front-Cover Texts
being "Linux Infrared HOWTO", and with the Back-Cover Texts being the section
"About the Document and the Author". A copy of the license is included in the
section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3. GNU Free Documentation License - GFDL

Version 1.1, March 2000

Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330,
Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute
verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.1. 0. PREAMBLE

The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other written
document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective
freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either
commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the
author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being
considered responsible for modifications made by others.

This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of
the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the
GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free
software.

We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free
software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program
should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does.
But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any
textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a
printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose
is instruction or reference.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.2. 1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

This License applies to any manual or other work that contains a notice
placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms
of this License. The "Document", below, refers to any such manual or work.
Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you".

A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing the Document
or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or
translated into another language.

A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the
Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or
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The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are
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The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed, as
Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the
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A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy,
represented in a format whose specification is available to the general
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Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII
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The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such
following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License
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any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent
appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.3. 2. VERBATIM COPYING

You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially
or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and
the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced
in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of
this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the
reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you
may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large
enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.

You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may
publicly display copies.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.4. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY

If you publish printed copies of the Document numbering more than 100, and
the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the
copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts:
Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover.
Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of
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the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the
covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as
they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be
treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you
should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual
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If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more
than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along
with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a
publicly-accessible computer-network location containing a complete
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network-using public has access to download anonymously at no charge using
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in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible
at the stated location until at least one year after the last time you
distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of
that edition to the public.

It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the
Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them
a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.5. 4. MODIFICATIONS

You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the
conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified
Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the
role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the
Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do
these things in the Modified Version:

A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from
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B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version,
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C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version,
as the publisher.

D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.

E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the
other copyright notices.

F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving
the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this
License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.

G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and
required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.

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I. Preserve the section entitled "History", and its title, and add to it an
item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the
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J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public
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the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.

K. In any section entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications", preserve the
section's title, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of
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text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not
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M. Delete any section entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not be
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N. Do not retitle any existing section as "Endorsements" or to conflict in
title with any Invariant Section.

If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that
qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the
Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as
invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in
the Modified Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from any
other section titles.

You may add a section entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains nothing
but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties--for example,
statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an
organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a
passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of
Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and
one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any
one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover,
previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are
acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old
one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old
one.

The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give
permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply
endorsement of any Modified Version.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.6. 5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

You may combine the Document with other documents released under this
License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions,
provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of
all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant
Sections of your combined work in its license notice.

The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple
identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are
multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make
the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in
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titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the
combined work.

In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled "History" in the
various original documents, forming one section entitled "History"; likewise
combine any sections entitled "Acknowledgements", and any sections entitled
"Dedications". You must delete all sections entitled "Endorsements."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.7. 6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents
released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this
License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the
collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim
copying of each of the documents in all other respects.

You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it
individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License
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regarding verbatim copying of that document.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.8. 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and
independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or
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Document, provided no compilation copyright is claimed for the compilation.
Such a compilation is called an "aggregate", and this License does not apply
to the other self-contained works thus compiled with the Document, on account
of their being thus compiled, if they are not themselves derivative works of
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If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.9. 8. TRANSLATION

Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute
translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing
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You may include a translation of this License provided that you also include
the original English version of this License. In case of a disagreement
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original English version will prevail.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.10. 9. TERMINATION

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as
expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify,
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terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

E.3.11. 10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU
Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be
similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address
new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the
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conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has
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