*BSD News Article 64204


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From: unger@raindrop.seaslug.org (Thomas Unger)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Sharing the modem between incoming users, ppp, uucp, and hylafax
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 21:46:31 GMT
Organization: Wet Weather Consulting
Lines: 44
Message-ID: <Do875K.Jt6.0.raindrop.seaslug.org@raindrop.seaslug.org>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs116-6.u.washington.edu

There have been several messages on this group about sharing the
modem between software packages.  Well, I got it working here between
all the packages listed on the subject line (excepting that I'm not
using ppp auto dial).  One of the last puzzles for me was what serial
port name (ttyd0 or cuaa0) to use?  I found things work with the
call in port name.  The following excerpt from the flexfax web page 
confirms:


  Choosing a TTY Device

  There are two things to beware of in selecting a tty device file to
  use with your modem: flow control usage and port locking mechanisms.

  On many systems different devices are used to select different flow
  control schemes and/or whether or not the system will monitor the DCD
  signal. For example, IRIX systems use different device names to
  identify devices that monitor DCD and/or support RTS/CTS flow control.
  Likewise the FAS driver for SCO uses a different names as does the
  standard HP-UX terminal driver.

  On some systems inbound and outbound port use is interlocked by using
  a pair of devices, one for inbound use and another for outbound
  use. Typically this scheme works by stopping programs that use the
  inbound device until an inbound call is received (and DCD is raised by
  the modem).  Outbound usage is also interlocked against applications
  waiting for the inbound device. HylaFAX provides no direct support for
  this because this scheme requires that a modem auto-answer incoming
  calls (something that does not work with virtually any multi-mode,
  i.e. fax and data, modem). When faced with a system that uses this you
  have several alternatives. Most people elect to avoid the inbound
  device and run both incoming and outgoing traffic on the outbound
  device, using the builtin interlocking mechanism provided by
  HylaFAX. In this case the appropriate device to use is typically named
  /dev/cu*. Systems that have this style of device usage include BSDI
  and SunOS.


The web page is at:  http://www.vix.com/flexfax/toc.html

And I'll be glad to answer questions about what I did to get things
working.

Tom Unger.