NAME¶
mkiss - Attach a multi KISS interface
SYNOPSIS¶
mkiss [-c] [-f] [-h] [-l] [-s speed] [-p pollrate] [-v] [-x n_ptmx]
ttyinterface pty ..
DESCRIPTION¶
Mkiss allows dual port TNCs or multiple TNCs sharing the same serial port
to be used with the Linux AX.25 kernel software. The AX.25 software has no
support for dual port TNCs or multiple TNCs charing the same serial line. The
different ports are addressed by encoding the port number in the control byte
of every kiss frame.
Mkiss watches a serial port, and routes kiss
frames to/from the pseudo ttys. The other side of the pseudo ttys are then
attached with
kissattach as normal.
Statistics about the operation of
mkiss may be obtained by sending the
SIGUSR1 signal to the running program. On reception of such a signal
mkiss will print a set of statistics to the system log if logging has
been enabled.
Although mention is made of using pseudo ttys as the last arguments, these
devices may be normal serial ports. However
mkiss provides no way in
which to set their speed, the speed must therefore be set by some other
method.
If the pty argument is "/dev/ptmx", then Unix98 behaviour will
automatically take effekt. With Unix98 pty's, the slave pty name could not be
forseen. That's why mkiss will print the corresponding slave pty name as a
separate line on stdout.
If the pty name is the special name "none", no pty is opened. This is
useful if you have multiport tnc like the KPC-9612 on i.e. /dev/ttyUSB0 and
you only like to handle packets for the second port. The KPC has no option to
configure the second tnc to listen on kiss port number 0. Thus, if you like to
send all frames from the pty to the kiss port number 1, we need to tell mkiss
to tag them for port number 1. This is done by "mkiss /dev/ttyUSB0 none
/dev/ptmx". Frames received with port number 0 are discarded.
OPTIONS¶
- -c
- This enables a one-byte checksum on each incoming and outgoing KISS frame
on the serial port. This checksum is used by G8BPQ KISS roms to maintain
the integrity of KISS frames.
- -f
- This enables a 16-bit checksum on each incoming and outgoing KISS frame on
the serial port. This checksum is used by Flexnet Node and BayCom Mailbox
to maintain the integrity of KISS frames.
- -h
- Enables hardware handshaking on the serial line to the TNC. The KISS
specification states that no hardware flow control shall be used so the
default is off. But some KISS implementations do use hardware flow
control.
- -l
- Enables system logging, the default is off.
- -s speed
- Set the speed of the serial port.
- -p pollrate
- Enables polling. Polled mode is used by G8BPQ KISS roms to prevent
contention on systems where multiple TNCs share the same serial line.
Pollrate is interval between polls (in 100ms units).
- -v
- Display the version.
- -x number
- This option is for Unix98 PTYs. It allocates "number" ptys;
their names are written to stdout. When -x is used, the pty arguments are
optional. "mkiss -x 3 ttyname" is an comfortable alternative to
"mkiss ttyname /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx".
SEE ALSO¶
kissattach(8),
ifconfig(8),
kill(1).
AUTHORS¶
Tomi Manninen OH2BNS <oh2bns@sral.fi>
Jonathan Naylor G4KLX <g4klx@g4klx.demon.co.uk>
Kevin Uhlir N0BEL <kevinu@flochart.com>