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Linus Torvalds1da177e2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07001IBM 3270 Display System support
2
3This file describes the driver that supports local channel attachment
4of IBM 3270 devices. It consists of three sections:
5 * Introduction
6 * Installation
7 * Operation
8
9
10INTRODUCTION.
11
12This paper describes installing and operating 3270 devices under
13Linux/390. A 3270 device is a block-mode rows-and-columns terminal of
14which I'm sure hundreds of millions were sold by IBM and clonemakers
15twenty and thirty years ago.
16
17You may have 3270s in-house and not know it. If you're using the
18VM-ESA operating system, define a 3270 to your virtual machine by using
19the command "DEF GRAF <hex-address>" This paper presumes you will be
20defining four 3270s with the CP/CMS commands
21
22 DEF GRAF 620
23 DEF GRAF 621
24 DEF GRAF 622
25 DEF GRAF 623
26
27Your network connection from VM-ESA allows you to use x3270, tn3270, or
28another 3270 emulator, started from an xterm window on your PC or
29workstation. With the DEF GRAF command, an application such as xterm,
30and this Linux-390 3270 driver, you have another way of talking to your
31Linux box.
32
33This paper covers installation of the driver and operation of a
34dialed-in x3270.
35
36
37INSTALLATION.
38
39You install the driver by installing a patch, doing a kernel build, and
40running the configuration script (config3270.sh, in this directory).
41
42WARNING: If you are using 3270 console support, you must rerun the
43configuration script every time you change the console's address (perhaps
44by using the condev= parameter in silo's /boot/parmfile). More precisely,
45you should rerun the configuration script every time your set of 3270s,
46including the console 3270, changes subchannel identifier relative to
47one another. ReIPL as soon as possible after running the configuration
48script and the resulting /tmp/mkdev3270.
49
50If you have chosen to make tub3270 a module, you add a line to
51/etc/modprobe.conf. If you are working on a VM virtual machine, you
52can use DEF GRAF to define virtual 3270 devices.
53
54You may generate both 3270 and 3215 console support, or one or the
55other, or neither. If you generate both, the console type under VM is
56not changed. Use #CP Q TERM to see what the current console type is.
57Use #CP TERM CONMODE 3270 to change it to 3270. If you generate only
583270 console support, then the driver automatically converts your console
59at boot time to a 3270 if it is a 3215.
60
61In brief, these are the steps:
62 1. Install the tub3270 patch
63 2. (If a module) add a line to /etc/modprobe.conf
64 3. (If VM) define devices with DEF GRAF
65 4. Reboot
66 5. Configure
67
68To test that everything works, assuming VM and x3270,
69 1. Bring up an x3270 window.
70 2. Use the DIAL command in that window.
71 3. You should immediately see a Linux login screen.
72
73Here are the installation steps in detail:
74
75 1. The 3270 driver is a part of the official Linux kernel
76 source. Build a tree with the kernel source and any necessary
77 patches. Then do
78 make oldconfig
79 (If you wish to disable 3215 console support, edit
80 .config; change CONFIG_TN3215's value to "n";
81 and rerun "make oldconfig".)
82 make image
83 make modules
84 make modules_install
85
86 2. (Perform this step only if you have configured tub3270 as a
87 module.) Add a line to /etc/modprobe.conf to automatically
88 load the driver when it's needed. With this line added,
89 you will see login prompts appear on your 3270s as soon as
90 boot is complete (or with emulated 3270s, as soon as you dial
91 into your vm guest using the command "DIAL <vmguestname>").
92 Since the line-mode major number is 227, the line to add to
93 /etc/modprobe.conf should be:
94 alias char-major-227 tub3270
95
96 3. Define graphic devices to your vm guest machine, if you
97 haven't already. Define them before you reboot (reipl):
98 DEFINE GRAF 620
99 DEFINE GRAF 621
100 DEFINE GRAF 622
101 DEFINE GRAF 623
102
103 4. Reboot. The reboot process scans hardware devices, including
104 3270s, and this enables the tub3270 driver once loaded to respond
105 correctly to the configuration requests of the next step. If
106 you have chosen 3270 console support, your console now behaves
107 as a 3270, not a 3215.
108
109 5. Run the 3270 configuration script config3270. It is
110 distributed in this same directory, Documentation/s390, as
111 config3270.sh. Inspect the output script it produces,
112 /tmp/mkdev3270, and then run that script. This will create the
113 necessary character special device files and make the necessary
Adrian Bunkbf6ee0a2006-10-03 22:17:48 +0200114 changes to /etc/inittab.
Linus Torvalds1da177e2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700115
116 Then notify /sbin/init that /etc/inittab has changed, by issuing
117 the telinit command with the q operand:
118 cd Documentation/s390
119 sh config3270.sh
120 sh /tmp/mkdev3270
121 telinit q
122
123 This should be sufficient for your first time. If your 3270
124 configuration has changed and you're reusing config3270, you
125 should follow these steps:
126 Change 3270 configuration
127 Reboot
128 Run config3270 and /tmp/mkdev3270
129 Reboot
130
131Here are the testing steps in detail:
132
133 1. Bring up an x3270 window, or use an actual hardware 3278 or
134 3279, or use the 3270 emulator of your choice. You would be
135 running the emulator on your PC or workstation. You would use
136 the command, for example,
137 x3270 vm-esa-domain-name &
138 if you wanted a 3278 Model 4 with 43 rows of 80 columns, the
139 default model number. The driver does not take advantage of
140 extended attributes.
141
142 The screen you should now see contains a VM logo with input
143 lines near the bottom. Use TAB to move to the bottom line,
144 probably labeled "COMMAND ===>".
145
146 2. Use the DIAL command instead of the LOGIN command to connect
147 to one of the virtual 3270s you defined with the DEF GRAF
148 commands:
149 dial my-vm-guest-name
150
151 3. You should immediately see a login prompt from your
152 Linux-390 operating system. If that does not happen, you would
153 see instead the line "DIALED TO my-vm-guest-name 0620".
154
155 To troubleshoot: do these things.
156
157 A. Is the driver loaded? Use the lsmod command (no operands)
158 to find out. Probably it isn't. Try loading it manually, with
159 the command "insmod tub3270". Does that command give error
160 messages? Ha! There's your problem.
161
162 B. Is the /etc/inittab file modified as in installation step 3
163 above? Use the grep command to find out; for instance, issue
164 "grep 3270 /etc/inittab". Nothing found? There's your
165 problem!
166
167 C. Are the device special files created, as in installation
168 step 2 above? Use the ls -l command to find out; for instance,
169 issue "ls -l /dev/3270/tty620". The output should start with the
170 letter "c" meaning character device and should contain "227, 1"
171 just to the left of the device name. No such file? no "c"?
172 Wrong major number? Wrong minor number? There's your
173 problem!
174
175 D. Do you get the message
176 "HCPDIA047E my-vm-guest-name 0620 does not exist"?
177 If so, you must issue the command "DEF GRAF 620" from your VM
178 3215 console and then reboot the system.
179
180
181
182OPERATION.
183
184The driver defines three areas on the 3270 screen: the log area, the
185input area, and the status area.
186
187The log area takes up all but the bottom two lines of the screen. The
188driver writes terminal output to it, starting at the top line and going
189down. When it fills, the status area changes from "Linux Running" to
190"Linux More...". After a scrolling timeout of (default) 5 sec, the
191screen clears and more output is written, from the top down.
192
193The input area extends from the beginning of the second-to-last screen
194line to the start of the status area. You type commands in this area
195and hit ENTER to execute them.
196
197The status area initializes to "Linux Running" to give you a warm
198fuzzy feeling. When the log area fills up and output awaits, it
199changes to "Linux More...". At this time you can do several things or
200nothing. If you do nothing, the screen will clear in (default) 5 sec
201and more output will appear. You may hit ENTER with nothing typed in
202the input area to toggle between "Linux More..." and "Linux Holding",
203which indicates no scrolling will occur. (If you hit ENTER with "Linux
204Running" and nothing typed, the application receives a newline.)
205
206You may change the scrolling timeout value. For example, the following
207command line:
208 echo scrolltime=60 > /proc/tty/driver/tty3270
209changes the scrolling timeout value to 60 sec. Set scrolltime to 0 if
210you wish to prevent scrolling entirely.
211
212Other things you may do when the log area fills up are: hit PA2 to
213clear the log area and write more output to it, or hit CLEAR to clear
214the log area and the input area and write more output to the log area.
215
216Some of the Program Function (PF) and Program Attention (PA) keys are
217preassigned special functions. The ones that are not yield an alarm
218when pressed.
219
220PA1 causes a SIGINT to the currently running application. You may do
221the same thing from the input area, by typing "^C" and hitting ENTER.
222
223PA2 causes the log area to be cleared. If output awaits, it is then
224written to the log area.
225
226PF3 causes an EOF to be received as input by the application. You may
227cause an EOF also by typing "^D" and hitting ENTER.
228
229No PF key is preassigned to cause a job suspension, but you may cause a
230job suspension by typing "^Z" and hitting ENTER. You may wish to
231assign this function to a PF key. To make PF7 cause job suspension,
232execute the command:
233 echo pf7=^z > /proc/tty/driver/tty3270
234
235If the input you type does not end with the two characters "^n", the
236driver appends a newline character and sends it to the tty driver;
237otherwise the driver strips the "^n" and does not append a newline.
238The IBM 3215 driver behaves similarly.
239
240Pf10 causes the most recent command to be retrieved from the tube's
241command stack (default depth 20) and displayed in the input area. You
242may hit PF10 again for the next-most-recent command, and so on. A
243command is entered into the stack only when the input area is not made
244invisible (such as for password entry) and it is not identical to the
245current top entry. PF10 rotates backward through the command stack;
246PF11 rotates forward. You may assign the backward function to any PF
247key (or PA key, for that matter), say, PA3, with the command:
248 echo -e pa3=\\033k > /proc/tty/driver/tty3270
249This assigns the string ESC-k to PA3. Similarly, the string ESC-j
250performs the forward function. (Rationale: In bash with vi-mode line
251editing, ESC-k and ESC-j retrieve backward and forward history.
252Suggestions welcome.)
253
254Is a stack size of twenty commands not to your liking? Change it on
255the fly. To change to saving the last 100 commands, execute the
256command:
257 echo recallsize=100 > /proc/tty/driver/tty3270
258
259Have a command you issue frequently? Assign it to a PF or PA key! Use
260the command
261 echo pf24="mkdir foobar; cd foobar" > /proc/tty/driver/tty3270
262to execute the commands mkdir foobar and cd foobar immediately when you
263hit PF24. Want to see the command line first, before you execute it?
264Use the -n option of the echo command:
265 echo -n pf24="mkdir foo; cd foo" > /proc/tty/driver/tty3270
266
267
268
269Happy testing! I welcome any and all comments about this document, the
270driver, etc etc.
271
272Dick Hitt <rbh00@utsglobal.com>