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Linus Torvalds1da177e2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07001Frame Relay (FR) support for linux is built into a two tiered system of device
2drivers. The upper layer implements RFC1490 FR specification, and uses the
3Data Link Connection Identifier (DLCI) as its hardware address. Usually these
4are assigned by your network supplier, they give you the number/numbers of
5the Virtual Connections (VC) assigned to you.
6
7Each DLCI is a point-to-point link between your machine and a remote one.
8As such, a separate device is needed to accommodate the routing. Within the
9net-tools archives is 'dlcicfg'. This program will communicate with the
10base "DLCI" device, and create new net devices named 'dlci00', 'dlci01'...
11The configuration script will ask you how many DLCIs you need, as well as
12how many DLCIs you want to assign to each Frame Relay Access Device (FRAD).
13
14The DLCI uses a number of function calls to communicate with the FRAD, all
15of which are stored in the FRAD's private data area. assoc/deassoc,
16activate/deactivate and dlci_config. The DLCI supplies a receive function
17to the FRAD to accept incoming packets.
18
19With this initial offering, only 1 FRAD driver is available. With many thanks
20to Sangoma Technologies, David Mandelstam & Gene Kozin, the S502A, S502E &
21S508 are supported. This driver is currently set up for only FR, but as
22Sangoma makes more firmware modules available, it can be updated to provide
23them as well.
24
25Configuration of the FRAD makes use of another net-tools program, 'fradcfg'.
26This program makes use of a configuration file (which dlcicfg can also read)
27to specify the types of boards to be configured as FRADs, as well as perform
28any board specific configuration. The Sangoma module of fradcfg loads the
29FR firmware into the card, sets the irq/port/memory information, and provides
30an initial configuration.
31
32Additional FRAD device drivers can be added as hardware is available.
33
34At this time, the dlcicfg and fradcfg programs have not been incorporated into
35the net-tools distribution. They can be found at ftp.invlogic.com, in
36/pub/linux. Note that with OS/2 FTPD, you end up in /pub by default, so just
37use 'cd linux'. v0.10 is for use on pre-2.0.3 and earlier, v0.15 is for
38pre-2.0.4 and later.
39