Continuing my masochistic tendencies, I've got PLIP networking running
to an IBM 486 thinkpad with an IRQless perallel port. The trick, it
appears, is using plipconfig to increase the nibble and trigger wait
times. Until now, I've had problems with constant network timeouts,
e.g.:
Oct 24 03:23:57 localhost kernel: plip0: transmit timeout(1,8f)
(from /var/log/messages on "near" side).
With my latest trial, I've actually had just over 12 minutes' pass with
now timeouts, which is pretty remarkable. OK, so they've been
low-traffic minutes....
Ordinarially, I'd be getting repeated timeouts, with ping times ranging
from 5-6ms to thousands of ms with many dropped pings, particularly when
attempting involved connections such as ssh'ing into the box. These are
now far reduced, and networking is overall useable. I'm posting this
because I've found a number of posts from folks who've had PLIP setup
problems, but nothing indicating resolution.
This Works For Me[tm]:
I've been using scripted network setups to allow reproduceable
brokenness.
My configuration looks like:
"near" "far"
__________ _________ ___________
( ) eth0| | parallel | |
) LAN (---------+ jung +----------+ reflex |
(__________) /|_________|\ /|__________|
/ \ /
192.168.1.50 192.168.3.1 192.168.3.2
On the far side of the connection (reflex):
------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
# Start up PLIP connection w/ jung
export PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin
# Visible commands
set -v
# Modules
modprobe parport
# This is the IRQ-less parport.
modprobe parport_pc 0x3BC irq=none
modprobe plip
# Tune PLIP -- adjust as needed and sync on jung.
plipconfig plip0 nibble 12000 trigger 2000
# network proper
ifconfig plip0 192.168.3.2 pointopoint 192.168.3.1 netmask 255.255.255.255 up
route add default gw 192.168.3.1
# test
ping -c 3 192.168.3.1
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the near side of the connection (jung):
------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
# Start up PLIP connection w/ reflex
export PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin
# Visible commands.
set -v
# Modules
modprobe parport
# Note that this port has an IRQ. Set appropriately.
modprobe parport_pc io=0x378 irq=7
modprobe plip
# Configure PLIP -- adjust as needed and sync to reflex
plipconfig plip0 nibble 12000 trigger 2000
# network proper.
ifconfig plip0 192.168.3.1 pointopoint 192.168.3.2 netmask 255.255.255.255 up
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
ping -c 4 reflex
route -n
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peace.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
You're just stalling now.
- Princess Bride
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