Symphony Installation & Setup


This will cover the installation and setup of an ISA, PnP Proxim Symphony card.

Insert the Symphony card into an open ISA bus slot in your computer.  You may need to first setup the card using the hideous Windows operating system.  Select cancel when the Hardware Wizard comes up after finding the newly installed hardware.  Next, insert the Symphony's included CD-ROM and follow the instructions on the screen, and also follow along in the user's manual.

After the Symphony's setup is complete, go to, ahh Control Panel, then, umm...  christ this is stupid.  Somehow get the Symphony's IRQ and port range by selecting Device Manager -> Properties.  Try to resolve any problems there might be while under Windows.

You may also want to setup the Symphony's security ID while in Windows.  Standard practices for choosing passwords will apply in this process.  The ID will get changed into a 20 bit hash, and that will be used for the actual network link verification.  You can also change or set the security ID under Linux using proxcfg [dev {ifname}] secid {password}.  All the nodes you want in your network will need to have the same security ID.

Boot into Linux and watch for any errors or hardware conflicts.  Follow these next few steps exactly, execpt replace the IRQ, port range, and paths as needed.

In our example, 192.168.3.1 will be the master station's IP address and it will have the name MASTER.  The station will have the IP address 192.168.3.2 and have the name STATION1.  Other network parameters are: network = 192.168.3.0, netmask = 255.255.255.0, and broadcast = 192.168.3.255

Note:  The following commands (unfortunately) will most likely be Red Hat specific.  You may need to change the eth1 device name to correspond with your own system's device name.  Also, don't type the '  ' in the given commands, unless you really want to.  The proxcfg command output messages will be sent to syslogd (KERN_*).  So check /var/log/messages or type dmesg to view those.

Refer to the proxcfg(1) man page for more information.

(This will cover RangeLAN2 driver 1.5.3)

Master Station Setup

Step 1
Install full kernel sources.  These should already be installed under /usr/src/linux with your distribution.  Make sure loadable modules (CONFIG_MODULES) and the wireless network extensions (CONFIG_NET_RADIO) are enabled.  If you can't compile a kernel, leave right now.

Step 2
Grab the latest Symphony driver source and run 'tar xvzf rl2_driver.tar.gz'

Step 3
In the driver directory, type 'make config'.  Be prepared to answer some questions about module location, PC card support, and where to get your kernel config information.

Step 4
When the CardType default [3]: question comes up, type 4.

Step 5
After that is all done, type 'make modules modules_install' to begin the module rlmod.o and proxcfg command building process.  If you get any errors about modversions.h, type 'make dep' in your kernel source directory.

Step 6
Type 'pnpdump > /etc/isapnp.conf'.  pnpdump is part of the isapnptools package

Step 7
Edit /etc/isapnp.conf and check that the ports and IRQ match what you need.  Uncomment and edit the lines for IO BASE, IRQ, and ACT.  Here is an example /etc/isapnp.conf file for my Symphony

Step 8
Run 'isapnp /etc/isapnp.conf' and check that you have 'isapnp /etc/isapnp.conf' somewhere in your startup rc files.  /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit most likely.

Step 9
Test that the module works by typing 'insmod ./rlmod.o io=0x200 irq=15 CardType=4'.  Check your syslog messages for any errors.

Step 10
If successful, you should see something like this:
rlmod.o: v1.5.3, 1/15/00, Dave Koberstein ([email protected])
rlmod.o: Linux port by Paul Chinn ([email protected]).
eth1: Proxim Symphony 4100 PnP ISA Card, buffers enabled, fw: V2.3EL.
eth1: 00:20:a6:36:00:ce, IO: 0x200-7, irq 15.
eth1: Wireless extensions enabled

If not successful, go to Step 1 and check with the README files included with the driver source.

Step 11
Run 'proxcfg dev eth1 msta domain 0 channel 1 sub 1 name MASTER'.  You should see something like this:
eth1: Node type changed: Master.
eth1: Domain changed: 0.
eth1: Channel changed: 1.
eth1: Subchannel changed: 1.
eth1: Master name changed: MASTER.

Check that everything is configured right using the command 'proxcfg dev eth1 info'.  The output will look like this:

eth1    Card:Proxim Symphony 4100 PnP ISA Card  Protocol Mode:OpenAir
        Versions:  Driver:1.5.3  f/w:V2.3EL
        MAC:00:20:a6:36:00:ce  CC:80-01
        Domain:0  Node Type:Master  Master Name:MASTER
        Channel:1  Subchannel:1  MAC Optimize:very light
        Hop Period:200 ms  
        Debugging:disabled  Bridging:disabled

Step 12
You may want to append a /etc/conf.modules entry so you don't have to pass the module's parameters by hand.

Step 13
You should also create an ifcfg-eth1 file in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts to setup the device on boot up or for using the ifup command.

Or, by hand type 'ifconfig eth1 192.168.3.1 broadcast 192.168.3.255 netmask 255.255.255.0' to configure the card.

Some ifconfig and route output examples are shown below.

# ifconfig eth1
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:20:A6:36:00:CE
          inet addr:192.168.3.1  Bcast:192.168.3.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:32522 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:24560 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          Interrupt:15 Base address:0x200

# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.3.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
default         core            0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0

Regular Station Setup

Station setup is exactly same as the master, except type 'proxcfg dev eth1 sta domain 0 channel 1 sub 1 name STATION1' to set the Symphony to station mode.  You'll only need to change the msta parameter to sta.  Be sure you set the same domain for all the nodes you want on your network.

Here is the message output for a station setup:

rlmod.o: v1.5.3, 1/15/00, Dave Koberstein ([email protected])
rlmod.o: Linux port by Paul Chinn ([email protected]).
eth1: Proxim Symphony 4100 PnP ISA Card, buffers enabled, fw: V2.3EL.
eth1: 00:20:a6:36:a2:c7, IO: 0x200-7, irq 15.
eth1: Wireless extensions enabled
eth1: Node type changed: Station.
eth1: Domain changed: 0.
eth1: Channel changed: 1.
eth1: Subchannel changed: 1.
eth1: Master name changed: STATION1.

Check that everything is configured right using the command 'proxcfg dev eth1 info'.  The output will look like this:


eth1    Card:Proxim Symphony 4100 PnP ISA Card  Protocol Mode:OpenAir
        Versions:  Driver:1.5.3  f/w:V2.3EL
        MAC:00:20:a6:36:a2:c7  CC:80-01
        Domain:0  Node Type:Station
        Sync'd Master:  Name:MASTER  MAC:00:20:a6:36:00:ce
        Channel:13  Subchannel:1  
        Peer-to-Peer:enabled  Inactivity Timeout:0  
        Roam configuration:normal  Roaming:enabled
        Debugging:disabled  Bridging:disabled

Make sure all your stations are synced to the master node in your network.

Some ifconfig and route output examples are shown below.

# ifconfig eth1
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:20:A6:36:A2:C7
          inet addr:192.168.3.2  Bcast:192.168.3.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          Interrupt:15 Base address:0x200

# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.3.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
default         core            0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0

Test the setup by pinging each of the nodes on your network in a controlled enviroment (i.e. close together with known good antennas):

# ping 192.168.3.1
PING 192.168.3.1 (192.168.3.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=10.8 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=20.0 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=10.6 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=19.9 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=13.1 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=10.7 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=255 time=12.0 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=255 time=10.7 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=255 time=12.0 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.3.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=255 time=20.0 ms

...

The newer RangeLAN drivers even include a utility called proxnet.  This will allow you to do a MAC layer ping to your other machines.  You can then check the wireless links independent of any IP configuration and verify your cards are indeed working properly.

# proxnet dev eth1 ping ffffffffffff
...
eth1: Ping response from: 00:20:a6:36:a2:c7

You can now treat the Symphonies just like regular Ethernet devices.  If your distribution doesn't automatically configure them on boot up, by hand type 'modprobe rlmod' and 'ifup eth1' after editing the proper configuration files.  You will need to add these commands to your rc.local file.

You may want to experiment with different MTU sizes, window sizes or other device parameters.  For instance, try the options peer-to-peer disable and roam disable on your stations to help improve your link performace.  Also, you can use the ipchains(8) command to setup firewall rules or tweak the priority on certain network traffic.  Refer to the route(8) and ifconfig(8) man pages, or the Linux networking NET3-4 How-To for more information if you have networking problems.

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