ports(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual ports(7)
NAME
ports, port_names - Device (tty and lp) names for serial and parallel ports
SYNOPSIS
Default Serial Ports:
/dev/tty00
/dev/tty01 (not present on a single-port system)
Parallel Port:
/dev/lp0
DESCRIPTION
AlphaStation and AlphaServer systems provide one or two 9-pin serial communication ports. These ports are usually labelled 1 (COMM1) and 2
(COMM2), but they may be identified by different icons. Using the appropriate serial cable and terminator, you can connect a serial
printer, external modem, or character-cell terminal to a serial port. Most AlphaStation and AlphaServer systems also provide one parallel
port, for use with a parallel printer.
When you add a device to your system, the installation documentation may instruct you to map the device pathname to the port. These
devices are located in the /dev directory.
For serial-line ports, the two default device pathnames are: This pathname always maps to 1, COMM1, the lowest port number, an icon for a
terminal console, or the only serial port (on a single-port system). This pathname always maps to 2, COMM2, the next numbered port, or (if
one serial port is labeled with an icon for a terminal console) the remaining serial port.
If your system hardware has been extended to include additional serial ports, the pathnames /dev/tty02, /dev/tty03, and so forth, may also
be available to you. However, most systems have only /dev/tty00 and /dev/tty01 as the device pathnames for serial ports.
The one parallel port on an AlphaStation or AlphaServer may be labeled with the word printer or a printer icon. On some systems, the paral-
lel port may not be labeled. The device pathname for the parallel port is /dev/lp0. Currently, Tru64 UNIX does not fully support parallel
printers, so fewer devices are connected to this port as compared to serial ports.
If you are connecting a terminal console to your system, it must be connected to the serial port mapped to /dev/tty00. For other serial
devices, it does not matter which of the serial ports you choose for the connection. For example, suppose you are setting up a system that
has two serial ports, labeled 1 and 2. You intend to use a serial-line terminal rather than a workstation monitor as the system console and
also want to connect a serial-line printer to the system. In this case, you must connect the terminal to the port labeled 1 (with the
device pathname /dev/tty00). Therefore, you must connect the printer to the remaining port labeled 2 (with the device pathname /dev/tty01).
If, for the same type of system, you intend to use a workstation monitor as the system console, it does not matter which serial port you
use for a serial-line printer or modem. In other words, you can connect the printer to either port 1 (with pathname /dev/tty00) or port 2
(with pathname /dev/tty01). When prompted to enter a /dev/tty** pathname by the lprsetup script or the Print configuration tool in the CDE
Application Manager, you would specify /dev/tty00 if you connected the printer to port 1 or /dev/tty01 if you connected the printer to port
2.
See the System Administration manual for more information on setting up consoles (including remote consoles) and printers. See the
modem(7) reference page for more information on setting up modems.
SEE ALSO
Commands: lprsetup(8)
Devices: ace(7), modem(7)
System Administration delim off
ports(7)
Check Out this Related Man Page
ports(1M) System Administration Commands ports(1M)
NAME
ports - creates /dev entries and inittab entries for serial lines
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/ports [-r rootdir]
DESCRIPTION
devfsadm(1M) is now the preferred command for /dev and /devices and should be used instead of ports.
The ports command creates symbolic links in the /dev/term and /dev/cua directories to the serial-port character device files in /devices
and adds new entries in /etc/inittab for non-system ports found. System-board ports are given single lower-case letters for names (such as
a and b) while other ports are named numerically.
ports searches the kernel device tree to find the serial devices attached to the system. It also checks /dev/term and /dev/cua to see what
symbolic links to serial devices already exist. ports then performs the following:
1. Assigns new numbers (or letters for system-board ports) to ports that are attached to the system but do not have /dev/term and /dev/cua
entries. The numbers or letters assigned are the lowest-unused numbers or letters.
2. Removes dangling links: links from /dev/term and /dev/cua pointing to no-longer-existing ports.
3. Creates new /dev/term and /dev/cua links for new serial devices.
4. Invokes sacadm(1M) to make new port monitor entries for the new devices. This is not done automatically for on-board ports; on worksta-
tions these ports are often not used for dial-in sessions, so a port-monitor for one of these ports must be created explicitly.
If the configuration has not changed, ports exits without doing anything.
Notice to Driver Writers
ports considers devices with a node type of DDI_NT_SERIAL, DDI_NT_SERIAL_MB, DDI_NT_SERIAL_DO, or DDI_NT_SERIAL_MB_DO to be serial port
devices. Devices with one of these node types must create minor device names that obey the following conventions when calling ddi_cre-
ate_minor_node(9F).
o The minor name for non-system port devices (DDI_NT_SERIAL) consists of an ASCII numeric string, where the first port on the device is
named 0, the second named 1, the third named 2, up to the number of ports provided by the device.
o The minor name for non-system dialout devices (DDI_NT_SERIAL_DO) is the ASCII numeric port name, concatenated with ,cu. For example,
the minor name for the first dialout port on the serial board is 0,cu.
o The minor name for system-board port devices (DDI_NT_SERIAL_MB) consists of a string containing a single ASCII lowercase character,
where the first port on the device is named a, the second is named b, the third is named c, for all ports on the device (or up through
port z).
o The minor name for system-board dialout devices (DDI_NT_SERIAL_MB_DO) consists of the lowercase character port name, concatenated with
,cu. For example, the minor name for the first dialout port on the on-board serial device is a,cu.
To prevent disks from attempting to automatically generate links for a device, drivers must specify a private node type and refrain from
using one of the above node types when calling ddi_create_minor_node(9F).
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-r rootdir Causes ports to presume that the /dev/term, /dev/cua, and /devices directories are found under rootdir, not directly under
/. If this argument is specified, sacadm(1M) is not invoked, since it would update terminal administration files under /etc
without regard to the rootdir.
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Creating the Serial and Dialout Minor Device Nodes
The following example creates the serial and dialout minor device nodes from the xkserial driver's attach(9E) function:
/*
* Create the minor number by combining the instance number
* with the port number.
*/ #define XKNUMPORTS 8
#define XKMINORNUM(i, p) ((i) << 4 | (p))
#define XKMINORNUM_DO(i, p) ((i) << 4 | (p) | 0x80)
int
xkserialattach(dev_info_t *dip, ddi_attach_cmd_t cmd)
{
int instance, portnum;
char name[8];
/* other stuff in attach... */
instance = ddi_get_instance(dip);
for (portnum = 0; portnum < XKNUMPORTS; portnum++) {
/*
* create the serial port device
*/
sprintf(name, "%d", portnum);
ddi_create_minor_node(dip, name, S_IFCHR,
XKMINORNUM(instance, portnum), DDI_NT_SERIAL, 0);
/*
* create the dialout device
*/
sprintf(name,"%d,cu", portnum);
ddi_create_minor_node(dip, name, S_IFCHR,
XKMINORNUM_DO(instance, portnum), DDI_NT_SERIAL_DO, 0);
}
}
Example 2: Installing the xkserial Port Driver on a Sun Fire 4800
The following example installs the xkserial port driver on a Sun Fire 4800 (with the driver controlling the fictional XKSerial 8 port
serial board), with these special files in /devices:
# ls -l /devices/ssm@0,0/pci@18,700000/pci@1/xkserial@f,800000/
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 16 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:0
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 144 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:0,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 17 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:1
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 145 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:1,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 18 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:2
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 146 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:2,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 19 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:3
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 147 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:3,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 20 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:4
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 148 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:4,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 21 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:5
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 149 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:5,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 22 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:6
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 150 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:6,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 23 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:7
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 151 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:7,cu
/dev/term contain symbolic links to the serial port device nodes in /devices
# ls -l /dev/term
/dev/term/0 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:0
/dev/term/1 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:1
/dev/term/2 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:2
/dev/term/3 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:3
/dev/term/4 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:4
/dev/term/5 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:5
/dev/term/6 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:6
/dev/term/7 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:7
and /dev/cua contain symbolic links to the dialout port device nodes in /devices
# ls -l /dev/cua
/dev/cua/0 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:0,cu
/dev/cua/1 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:1,cu
/dev/cua/2 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:2,cu
/dev/cua/3 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:3,cu
/dev/cua/4 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:4,cu
/dev/cua/5 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:5,cu
/dev/cua/6 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:6,cu
/dev/cua/7 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:7,cu
FILES
/dev/term/n Logical serial port devices
/dev/cua/n Logical dialout port devices
/etc/inittab
/etc/saf/*
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability | SUNWcsu |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO
add_drv(1M), devfsadm(1M), drvconfig(1M), pmadm(1M), sacadm(1M), attributes(5), devfs(7FS), attach(9E), ddi_create_minor_node(9F)
Writing Device Drivers
SunOS 5.10 8 Nov 2002 ports(1M)