Portmaster 11 Frequently Asked Questions Updated: 12/27/96 This FAQ was compiled from emails from the Livingston Tech support Department as well as personal experience. I would like to thank all of them for their help. Jake Messinger (jake@ams.com) ========================================================================== PART 1: INTRODUCTION Q1. What is a PM 11? A1. It is the first terminal server designed by Livingston Enterprises. It was a 10 port non expandable, stand-alone unit. It can do PAP/CHAP/Radius authentication, PPP/SLIP and telnet. It is remotely serviceable and can be used for dial-in as well as dial-out operations. It is capable of load balancing across 1 or more of its ports. Q2 What are the MAJOR differences between the PM 11 and the current PM 2? A2. The PM11 is the original PortMaster. Major differences from the PM2 are: 1. Slightly less memory 2. Internal floppy disk instead of nonvolatile flash memory 3. 2.4 is the last release for it and requires a memory upgrade (2 DRAMs; Livingston can sell you the kit - 2 256k x 4 80ns drams) 4. 10 ports at 38.4k instead of 10 ports at 115.2k (some people have run ports at 57.6k; we don't claim that it works but it does anyway on a light load) 5. No dipswitches to set ethernet type, netboot or diagnostic port. 6. Changing from BNC to AUI requires opening the box and changing jumpers internally; you'll need a transceiver if you want to use Twisted Pair. 7. Out of warranty (but we'll still repair it for Time & Materials and they almost never fail anyway) 8. The 2.4 that runs on the PM11 is a different binary than the version that runs on the PM2 or PM2e but has identical functionality. Q3. Do you still support the PM 11? A3. The PM11 has lifetime software support just like the PM2 and PM2e. Q4. Why is it called a PM 11? A4. There are 10 serial ports and 1 parallel port on the PM 11. With a special program (available at ftp.ams.com or ftp.livingston.com) you can use the parallel port to drive a remote printer. ========================================================================== PART II: SETTING UP A PM 11 Q1. How do I get started on configuring a PM 11 from scratch? A1. Get a null modem cable and a PC or dumb terminal and set it to 9600-n-8-1. You may have to jumper pin 6 to 8 on the PM side to get it to detect your terminal Turn on the portmaster, and you should see after 30 seconds login: . Login as "!root". Be sure to include the "!" sign before root. There is HELP built in. Just type "help". Q2. Is there a manual for the PM 11? A2. No there is no longer a manual available, however the older PM 2 manual available at ftp.livingston.com in pdf and postscript formats. It has what you need to configure a PM 11. Just ignore any references to IPX or Flash Rom. Everything else is the same. Q3. Okay so what do I need to know hardware wise? A3. The two useful hardware bits of knowledge for PM 11's is how to upgrade the memory and how to change the jumpers to change the flavor of ethernet. Look in the pm11-jumpers file for a description of all the jumpers and settings. It also shows what chips to use and the locations of the chips. You should also look at the README.pm11 file. Most PM 11's have already been upgraded. Q4. How do I change between using the Thin-net and aui configurations? A4. There are a set of 7 jumpers located on the ethernet card inside the PM-11. If they are jumpered on the lower set of pins the thin net is enabled, if the upper set is jumpered, the aui is enabled. Q5. Is there an easy way to set up these devices? A5. There is PMCONSOLE available for Windows and most unix environments including Linux. Check ftp://ftp.ams.com/pub/livingston or check www://www.livingston.com for the latest version. It is FREE and very good! It makes life much more enjoyable. PMCONSOLE is good for constant monitoring of sessions and ports as well. Q6. How can I connect the PM 11 to a 10 base T network? A6. Set the jumpers for the AUI port and use an AUI to 10 Base T transceiver. They can be bought for around $20 from Datacomm Warehouse and other network vendors. Q7. How do I use the parallel printer? Can I use any of the ports to connect printers to? A7. Yes! If you are running unix, then you can download "in.pmd" from ftp.livingston.com. It is a daemon that lets you print to ports on the portmaster thru your standard lpr utilities. If you have Linux or some other flavor of unix that does NOT seem to like in.pmd, you can use netpipe.c available at ftp.ams.com. It establishes an 8-bit tcpip connection with a specific port and allows you to send raw data to it. It is very simple to use and can be used in conjunction with a printcap and lpr. Some installations use a portmaster 11 solely as a print server. You can connect up to 11 printers to a PM 11. Hence the name. Q8. How do I bypass the password on a PM 11? A8. Normally with PM products, you can log in as !root and for password, enter "override" and then call Livingston and give them the challenge string that the PM gives you. HOWEVER, THIS DOES NOT WORK on a PM 11. The easiest way to override it, is take the diskette out, copy a new image onto it, and reboot off of that new image. You will lose any previous setup information. ============================================================================= PART 3: TROUBLESHOOTING Q1. I was guessing on how to get the thing to work and changed alot of switch settings and jumpers and I stupidly did NOT write down the original positions. What now? A1. See ftp://ftp.ams.com/pub/livingston/pm11-jumpers and it will show you the default settings for the jumpers and switches and what they do. Q2. I set up the portmaster for 57600 on the serial ports and connect my modems, but when people dial in, they get garbage. A2. This is not the fault of the portmaster. This is the modem's fault. The problem is that the modem has no idea what DTE speed the port is set at. To fix this, set up the port for DIAL-OUT, and assign its device service to TELNET and give it a unique port number. 6000 for S0, 6001 for S1, etc... Then telnet to the portmaster specifying the port associated with the serial port. Then type AT. You should get "OK". If so, type AT&W. This will save the DTE speed in the modem. Some modems allow you to lock the DTE speed using S87. Check your modem manual. Q3. I think the floppy disk drive is bad. Where do I get a 720k floppy drive? A3. You can use a 1.44 Mb floppy disk drive in place of the 720k drive. This has been tested by jake@ams.com. Q4. I get lots of comm overruns when I set the ports to 57600. A4. You are working the processor too hard. See the pm11-upgrade.howto at ftp://ftp.ams.com/pub/livingston . The original motherboard can do 57600 on a few ports but not all 10 simultaneously. Also see the UPGRADE section of this FAQ. Q5. I got PMCONSOLE and most things work except it always says USER UPDATE FAILED when I make a change to a user. A5. Your changes ARE being saved. The newer com os puts out a different success message than version 2.4 and PMCONSOLE does not recognize the old string; therefore it THINKS it failed. If you close the user window and then reopen it, you will see that your changes have been saved. Q6. I decided to be adventurous and set my ports to 115200. After all, it was a legal speed option. Now I get garbage when I try to connect. A6. This is due to a BUG in COM OS 2.4. If you try to set the port to 115200, it will tell you that it has done so, however, hardware wise, the port gets set to 4800 baud! Livingston has been notified of this bug but will probably never fix it because the PM 11 was officially only supposed to support 38400. They were just thinking ahead. This is why the absolute maximum speed on a serial port on a PM 11 is 57600. Even a P6 chip wouldn't fix the problem. Q7. I got the PM 11 thinking it would do Radius Accounting but it doesn't. What do I do? A7. The PM 11 does do Radius authentication but it does not do Radius Accounting. It does, however, have the ability to log all events to a remote host. With the use of a script, you can retrieve the same type of accounting information that is available with advanced Radius. Look at ftp://ftp.ams.com/pub/livingston/usage for a sample script. ========================================================================== PART IV: UPGRADING and MAINTENANCE Q1. How do I upgrade to the Latest COM OS (2.4)? A1. Release 2.4 requires a memory upgrade. The standard PM-11 contains 512K bytes of RAM. An additional 128K must be added to fully utilize release 2.4. Standard 256K X 4 80ns memory chips should be used. These should be placed in sockets U2 and U7 on the main system board before loading the upgrade. Contact Livingston Technical support for assistance in adding or obtaining these memory chips. Release 2.4 also requires Rom level D (look after "celerex") or higher. You must use pminstall 2.4 or later to upgrade to release 2.4; it's available from ftp.netcom.com:/pub/le/software. Or you can start over by downloading a fresh disk image with com-os 2.4 (pm11_24_image.gz) and copying it to a 720k diskette with rawrite or dd. Q2. Can I upgrade to a higher version of COM OS? A2. You can't load 3.0 or higher on the PM11. Later PM's are designed to use NVRAM and not floppies. The software is completely different although it still looks and acts very much like COM OS 2.4. Q3. Can the PM 11 be hardware uprgaded so that I can eliminate comm overruns? A3. Yes. You can replace the motherboard with a 386 or higher motherboard. Please contact jake@ams.com for more information on this. See ftp://ftp.ams.com/pub/livingston/pm11-upgrade.howto for a step-by-step procedure to do such an upgrade. Q4. What sort of maintenance do I need to perform on the PM 11? A4. There isn't really any maintenaince to the PM-11; if it breaks, Livingston still repairs them for Time&Materials; about the only thing that ever gets broken on them is the floppy drive or the ethernet connector. And if the ethernet connector does get broken, you can just set it for AUI and use a transceiver (commonly priced at around $20) If you think I should add to this or you have anything to add, email me at jake@ams.com. Jake Messinger =========================================================================== End of PM11-FAQ.txt