FarSync Drivers

OEM Installation Instructions

This section details how to install the FarSync drivers if you want write an application that reads and writes frames to and from the FarSync port through an Application Programming Interface (API).  To successfully install this product, please follow the instructions in the following sequence.  

Pre-Installation Requirements

Required Build Tools

The following are a prerequisite for the installation of the device driver and supporting software:

Kernel development system including:
C compiler
Make system
Patch utility

2.6 & 3.0 Kernels

The FarSync and FarSync Flex drivers are built as an external Kernel module.  In order to be compatible with your Kernel, you will require a copy of the Kernel Development Headers to be in place and the following symbolic link pointing to them:

/usr/src/linux

The most usual place for the Kernel headers to reside is in or below the /usr/src directory, so after making the symbolic link your /usr/src directory may look like this:

[root@Rental fsx25-3.4.2]# ls -l /usr/src/
total 273396
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Sep 23 2011 debug
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Aug 1 2012 kernels
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 34 Aug 1 2012 linux -> kernels/2.6.32-279.2.1.el6.x86_64/

In general, the Kernels supported supported by the farsync and flex drivers are:

Proceed to running the install script.

Running the Install Script

The installation CD contains a file called farsync-2.2.x.tar.gz, where x is a release number, e.g. 2.  Make a working directory and copy this file into it. Use the following command to unpack the software:

# tar -zxvf farsync-2.2.x.tar.gz

Change directory to the newly created source tree:

# cd farsync-2.2.x

The source tree will contain the following files and sub-directories:

install The installation script
uninstall A script to uninstall the driver
Readme The Readme file
COPYING A copy of the GNU Public License
common/ Common files for the installation
doc/ Online documentation
farnetd/ Port monitoring utility
includes/ Include files for the drivers
kernel/ Support files and scripts for sync driver
kernel-hdlc/ Support files and scripts for hdlc driver
kernel-oem/ Support files and scripts for oem driver

As root, run the install script with the following command:

# ./install oem

Use ./install rather than simply install so as not to confuse the command with any standard install command that may be present on the system.

The installation script will detect the Kernel version under /usr/src/linux and perform some other checks before installing the software.

OEM driver source files farsync.c and farsync.h will be installed in /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/wan with any previous versions being backed up as farsync.c~ and farsync.h~ .  The farsync and fsflex drivers are built as external modules.

The support utilities will be added to /sbin and support files placed in /etc/farsite/farsync.

If no configuration files are present then example configuration files will be placed in /etc/farsite/farsync/ (/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts on Red Hat like systems).

Start the Drivers

The next step is to start the drivers with the following command:

/etc/init.d/farsync start

If you have FarSync PCI cards installed, then you should see a message showing that the card is being loaded.  For example

[root@odeon ~]# 
Loading T4U

And you can cat the /proc/farsync and /proc/fsflex files to check that the interfaces are running.

[root@odeon ~]# more /proc/farsync 
FarSync OEM Driver version 2.2.2 - Patch Level 00 - Build -b233
1 Cards found
sync0-sync3:(W7418039) FarSync T4U IRQ5, 4 ports, State: Running 
Total number of ports = 4
 
[root@odeon ~]# more /proc/fsflex 
FarSync Flex OEM Driver version 2.2.2 - Patch Level 00 - Build -b233
2 Cards found
sync4-sync4: FarSync Flex-1 (U0010063), 1 ports, State: Running 
sync5-sync5: FarSync Flex-1 (U0010096), 1 ports, State: Running 
Total number of ports = 2

Application Development

Once the driver have been successfully started, the ports are available to applications.  If you have purchased the Software Developers Tool Kit (SDK) then you can build and try out some of the example applications.  Most of them a written to work on two ports that are looped back to each other (using a NULL modem cable for example).  The SDK also contains a set of comprehensive API manuals.

Reboot (Optional)

As a final test of the installation, you could reboot the system to ensure that the drivers are loaded when the system starts up.  If not already done this is a good time to power off and install the hardware.

As the system boots look for and check the farsync and fsflex driver startup messages which should look something like this:

FarSync OEM driver 2.2.2-00-64bit-b233 (c) 2014 FarSite Communications Ltd.
sync0-sync3: (W7870001) FarSync T4U IRQ5, 4 ports
fst: fst_min_dma_len set to 0
fst: fst_dmathr set to dd00dd00
fst: fst_iocinfo_version set to 1
fst: Initialising flex tty driver
Flex USB OEM driver 2.2.2-00-64bit-b233 (c) 2014 FarSite Communications Ltd.
sync4-sync4: (U0010063) FarSync Flex-1, 1 ports
USB flex device now attached to Minor 0
sync5-sync5: (U0010096) FarSync Flex-1, 1 ports
USB flex device now attached to Minor 1

You can confirm that the drivers have found all the FarSync devices and check the card serial numbers by looking in the /proc/farsync and /proc/fsflex files as detailed above.

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