RE: Add hardware handshaking to pseudo-tty and USB serial gadget

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> From: Peter Hurley [mailto:peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Thu, 2013-03-21 at 20:38 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
> > On 2013-03-21, Craig McQueen <craig.mcqueen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> >
> > > I'm interested in having support for hardware handshaking lines for
> > > both pseudo-tty (Unix 98 style) and USB serial gadget drivers.
> > > Unless I've missed something, it looks as though they don't support
> > > the hardware handshaking lines.
> > >
> > > Has anyone worked on this already, for either pseudo-tty or USB
> > > serial gadget?
> >
> > For years, I've wanted to be able to implement serial-ports in
> > user-space, but the pseudo-tty implments too small a subset of the
> tty
> > API to make it usable for that.  In addition to the TIOCMSET/TIOCMGET
> > support, it would need to support all the other standard serial-port
> > configuration options (character len, parity, baud rate, RTS/CTS flow
> > control, etc.).
> >
> > I asked several years ago if such enhancements to the pseudo-tty
> > driver would be accepted, but I never got any response, so I took
> that
> > as a "no".
> 
> Anything tacked onto the pty driver is a non-starter because any app
> that mis-handles termios for a pty will be in for a shock. There's a
> lot of weird legacy behavior that must continue to work.

I understand that could be a concern.

How about we add the functionality to the pty driver, but it's disabled by default, and applications that want it can turn it on with an ioctl call?

> > > It sounds as though people have done pseudo-ttys with HW
> handshaking
> > > support--eg tty0tty project. However I'd rather implement this
> > > function in the kernel pseudo-terminal driver itself. Is there any
> > > reason not to do that?
> >
> > No reason other than you and I are the only two people who care about
> > it. :)
> 
> Assuming you're leaning toward an in-kernel solution, why not just
> implement a new tty driver that behaves like a local serial port?

The pseudo-tty already provides most of the functionality I want, so I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I want to use it to simulate a modem device. Various other programs could benefit from an enhanced pseudo-tty, so they also don't have to implement their own kernel drivers--e.g.:

* interceptty could be enhanced if the pseudo-tty could handle hardware handshaking as well as setting port speed etc.
* Serial-over-Ethernet (RFC-2217) client drivers could use a pseudo-tty to implement the virtual tty device, including hardware handshaking and setting port speed etc.

> For the firewire-over-serial staging driver, I did a software-only
> loopback driver that does all that (simulate MCTRL, etc.) as a way to
> test and isolate firewire/dma problems from data handling and tty
> driver problems.
> 
> > > I was wondering how to handle the HW lines on the master side of
> the
> > > pseudo-tty, and on the USB gadget device. It's the opposite way to
> a
> > > regular serial port (DCE rather than DTE), so you _write_ DSR, CTS,
> > > DCD and RING, and _read_ DTR and RTS. There could be two ways to do
> > > this:
> > >
> > > 1) Reverse normal operations, so do TIOCMSET of TIOCM_DSR, TIOCM_CD
> > > etc.
> >
> > That's what I'd vote for.
> >
> > > 2) Act like a normal port, and "cross-over" signals. So do
> > >
> > > TIOCMSET of TIOCM_DTR, which changes DSR on the slave; TIOCMGET of
> > > TIOCM_DSR to read the state of DTR set by the slave. Etc. What
> about
> > > setting the slave's DCD and RING? Maybe do TIOCMSET of TIOCM_OUT1
> > > and
> > > TIOCM_OUT2 on the master.
> 
> This is the approach I took for simulating HW flow control over
> firewire. Software null-modem cable.

Perhaps there are pros and cons for both options. If we can't get a clear consensus, could we make this configurable with an ioctl call?

Regards,
Craig McQueen

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