1 .\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man4/si.4,v 1.20.2.5 2001/08/17 13:08:39 ru Exp $
7 .Nd "driver for Specialix International SI/XIO or SX intelligent serial card"
11 The Specialix SI/XIO and SX hardware makes up an 8 to 32 port RS-232 serial
14 The system uses two components: A "Host adapter", which is plugged into
15 a PCI slot and provides intelligence and buffering/processing
16 capabilities, as well as an external bus in the form of a 37 pin cable.
18 On this cable, "modules" are connected. The "SI" module comes in a 4 and 8
19 port version. The "XIO" and "SX" modules come only in
22 The host adapter polls and transfers data between the modules and the rest
24 The Host adapter provides a 256 byte transmit and 256 byte
25 receive FIFO for each of the 32 ports that it can maintain.
27 The XIO modules can operate each of their 8 ports at 115,200 baud.
28 The SI version can run at 57,600 baud.
29 The SX modules can operate each of their
30 8 ports at up to 921,600 baud.
32 SX modules are only supported when connected to an SX host card.
34 XIO modules are supported on any host card.
36 The si device driver may have some of its configuration settings changed
41 The si device driver also responds to the
43 utility for configuring drain-on-close timeouts.
45 The driver also defines 3 sysctl variables that can be manipulated:
47 sets the debug level for the whole driver.
49 on the driver being compiled with SI_DEBUG.
50 .Va machdep.si_pollrate
51 sets how often per second the driver polls for lost interrupts.
52 .Va machdep.si_realpoll
53 sets whether or not the card will treat the
54 poll intervals as if they were interrupts.
56 An open on a /dev device node controlled by the si driver obeys the same
59 driver. It fully supports the usual semantics of the cua ports, and the
60 "initial termios" and "locked termios" settings. In summary, an open on a
61 tty port will block until DCD is raised, unless O_NONBLOCK is specified.
62 CLOCAL is honored. An open on a cua port will always succeed, but DCD
63 transitions will be honored after DCD rises for the first time.
65 Up to four SI/XIO host cards may be controlled by the si driver.
67 The lowest 5 bits of the minor device number are used to select the port
68 number on the module cluster.
69 The next 2 bits select which of 4 host adapter
70 cards. This allows a maximum of 128 ports on this driver.
72 Bit 7 is used to differentiate a tty/dialin port (bit 7=0) and a
73 cua/callout port (bit 7=1).
77 are unavailable as they are a shadow of the
80 If bit 16 is a 1, the device node is referring to the "initial state" device.
81 This "initial state" is used to prime the
83 settings of the device when it is initially opened.
84 If bit 17 is a 1, the device node is referring to the "locked state" device.
85 The "locked state" is used to prevent the
87 settings from being changed.
89 To manipulate the initial/locked settings, the
91 command is useful. When setting the "locked" variables, enabling the mode
92 on the lock device will lock the termios mode, while disabling the mode will
95 .Bl -tag -width /dev/si_control -compact
96 .It Pa /dev/si_control
97 global driver control file for
100 terminal/dialin ports
104 initial termios state devices
106 locked termios state devices
108 initial termios state devices for dialout ports
110 locked termios state devices for dialout ports
120 This driver is loosely based on driver code originating at Specialix, which
121 was ported to run on BSDI by
122 .An Andy Rutter Aq Mt andy@specialix.co.uk .
123 The System V driver source is/was available by ftp from
124 .Sy ftp.specialix.co.uk .
126 This driver is not supported by Specialix International.
129 .An Peter Wemm Aq Mt peter@netplex.com.au
130 obtained the code from
134 and threw the man page together.
135 .An Bruce Evans Aq Mt bde@zeta.org.au
136 provided a large amount of assistance during porting.
137 .An Nick Sayer Aq Mt nick@specialix.com
138 wrote the PCI and SX portions.
140 The interrupt tuning rate is not believed to be optimal at this time for
143 Polled mode (a feature of standard Specialix drivers) is not implemented,
144 but it can be approximated by turning on
145 .Va machdep.si_realpoll .
146 The poll frequency is set by
147 .Va machdep.si_pollrate
148 (in units of 1/100th of a second).
150 The driver does not yet support baud rates higher than 115,200 on SX
153 Multiple host cards are supported although combinations of hosts on
154 different bus types have not been tested - device numbering is known to
155 be a problem and may lead to unexpected results.