8. Appendix

8.1 Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)

This is actually a sort of network plug-and-play developed by Microsoft but usable by Linux. You plug something into a network and that something doesn't need to be configured provided it will only communicate with other UPnP enabled devices on the network. Here configure is used in the broad sense and doesn't mean just configuring bus-resources. One objective is to allow people who know little about networks or configuring to install routers, gateways, network printers, etc. A major use for UPnP would be in wireless networking.

UPnP uses:

• Simple Service Discovery Protocol to find devices
• General Event Notification Architecture
• Simple Object Access Protocol for controlling devices

This HOWTO doesn't cover UPnP. UPnP for Linux is supported by Intel which has developed software for it. There are other programs which do about the same thing as UPnP. A comparison of some of them is at http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~dchakr1/papers/mcommerce.html

8.2 Address Details

There are three types of addresses: main memory addresses, I/O addresses and configuration addresses. On the PCI bus, configuration addresses constitute a separate address space just like I/O addresses do. Except for the complicated case of ISA configuration addresses whether or not an address on the bus is a memory address, I/O address, or configuration address depends only on the voltage on other wires (traces) of the bus. For the ISA configuration addresses see ISA Bus Configuration Addresses (Read-Port etc.) for details

Address ranges

The term "address" is sometimes used in this document to mean a contiguous range of addresses. Since addresses are in units of bytes, a single address only contains one byte but I/O (and main memory) addresses need more than this. So a range of say 8 bytes is often used for I/O address while the range for main memory addresses allocated to a device is much larger. For a serial port (an I/O device) it's sufficient to give the starting I/O address of the device (such as 3F8) since it's well known that the range of addresses for serial port is only 8 bytes. The starting address is known as the "base address". Sometimes just the word "range" is used to mean "address range".

Address space

For ISA, to access both I/O and (main) memory address "spaces" the same address bus is used (the wires used for the address are shared). How does the device know whether or not an address which appears on the address bus is a memory address or I/O address? Well, there are 4 dedicated wires on the bus that convey this information and more. If a certain one of these 4 wires is asserted, it says that the CPU wants to read from an I/O address, and the main memory ignores the address on the bus. The other 3 wires serve similar purposes. Thus read and write wires exist for both main memory and I/O addresses (4 wires in all).

For the PCI bus it's the same basic idea (also using 4 wires) but it's done a little differently. Instead of only one or the four wires being asserted, a binary number is put on the wires (16 different possibilities). Thus more info may be conveyed. Four of these 16 numbers serve the I/O and memory spaces as in the above paragraph. In addition there is also configuration address space which uses up two more numbers. Ten extra numbers are left over for other purposes.

Range Check (ISA Testing for IO Address Conflicts)

On the ISA bus, there's a method built into each PnP card for checking that there are no other cards that use the same I/O address. If two or more cards use the same IO address, neither card is likely to work right (if at all). Good PnP software should assign bus-resources so as to avoid this conflict, but even in this case a legacy card might be lurking somewhere with the same address.

The test works by a card putting a test number in its own IO registers. Then the PnP software reads it and verifies that it reads the same test number. If not, something is wrong (such as another card with the same address. It repeats the same test with another test number. Since it actually checks the range of IO addresses assigned to the card, it's called a "range check". It could be better called an address-conflict test. If there is an address conflict you get an error message and need to resolve it yourself.

Communicating Directly via Memory

Traditionally, most I/O devices used only I/O memory to communicate with the CPU. For example, the serial port does this. The device driver, running on the CPU would read and write data to/from the I/O address space and main memory. A faster way would be for the device itself to put the data directly into main memory. One way to do this is by using DMA Channels or bus mastering. Another way is to allocate some space in main memory to the device. This way the device reads and writes directly to main memory without having to bother with DMA or bus mastering. Such a device may also use IO addresses.

8.3 ISA Bus Configuration Addresses (Read-Port etc.)

These addresses are also known as the "Auto-configuration Ports". For the ISA bus, there is technically no configuration address space, but there is a special way for the CPU to access PnP configuration registers on the PnP cards. For this purpose 3 @ I/O addresses are allocated and each addresses only a single byte (there is no "range"). This is not 3 addresses for each card but 3 addresses shared by all ISA-PnP cards.

These 3 addresses are named read-port, write-port, and address-port. Each port is just one byte in size. Each PnP card has many configuration registers so that just 3 addresses are not even sufficient for the configuration registers on a single card. To solve this problem, each card is assigned a card number (handle) using a technique called "isolation". See ISA Isolation for the complex details.

Then to configure a certain card, its card number (handle) is sent out via the write-port address to tell that card that it is to listen at its address port. All other cards note that this isn't their card number and thus don't listen. Then the address of a configuration register (for that card) is sent to the address-port (for all cards --but only one is listening). Next, data transfer takes place with that configuration register on that card by either doing a read on the read-port or a write on the write-port.

The write-port is always at A79 and the address-port is always at 279 (hex). The read-port is not fixed but is set by the configuration software at some address (in the range 203-3FF) that will hopefully not conflict with any other ISA card. If there is a conflict, it will change the address. All PnP cards get "programmed" with this address. Thus if you use say isapnp to set or check configuration data it must determine this read-port address.

8.4 Interrupts --Details

Interrupts convey a lot of information but only indirectly. The interrupt request signal (a voltage on a wire) just tells a chip called the interrupt controller that a certain device needs attention. The interrupt controller then signals the CPU. The CPU then interrupts whatever it was doing, finds the driver for this device and runs a part of it known as an "interrupt service routine" (or "interrupt handler"). This "routine" tries to find out what has happened and then deals with the problem. For example, bytes may need to be transferred from/to the device. This program (routine) can easily find out what has happened since the device has registers at addresses known to the the driver software (provided the IRQ number and the I/O address of the device has been set correctly). These registers contain status information about the device . The software reads the contents of these registers and by inspecting the contents, finds out what happened and takes appropriate action.

Thus each device driver needs to know what interrupt number (IRQ) to listen to. On the PCI bus (and for some special cases on the ISA bus) it's possible for two (or more) devices to share the same IRQ number. When such an interrupt is issued, the CPU runs all interrupt service routines for all devices using that interrupt. The first thing the first service routine does is to check its device registers to see if an interrupt actually happened for its device. If it finds that its device didn't issue an interrupt (a false alarm) it likely will immediately exit and the service routine begins for the second device using that same interrupt, etc, etc.

The putting of a voltage on the IRQ line is only a request that the CPU be interrupted so it can run a device driver. In almost all cases the CPU is interrupted per the request. But interrupts may be temporarily disabled or prioritized so that in rare cases the actual interrupt doesn't happen (or gets delayed). Thus what was above called an "interrupt" is more precisely only an interrupt request and explains why IRQ stands for Interrupt ReQuest.

8.5 PCI Interrupts

There are two newer developments in PCI interrupts that are not covered here. They are especially important for cases of more than one CPU per computer. One is the Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC). Another is Message Signalled Interrupts (MSI) where the interrupt is just a message sent to a special address over the main computer bus (no interrupt lines needed). But the device that sends such a message must first gain control of the main bus so that it can send the interrupt message. Such a message contains more info than just "I'm sending an interrupt".

Ordinary PCI interrupts are different than ISA interrupts, but since they are normally mapped to IRQ's they behave in about the same way. One major difference is that the BIOS does this mapping. Under Linux it's not feasible to change it ?? unless the CMOS menu will let you do it. Another major difference is that PCI interrupts may be shared. For example IRQ5 may be shared between two PCI devices. This sharing ability is built into the hardware and all device drivers are supposed to support it. Note that you can't share the same interrupt between the PCI and ISA bus. However, illegal sharing will work provided the devices which are in conflict are not in use at the same time. "In use" here means that a program is running which "opened" the device in its C programming code.

Here are some of the details of the PCI interrupt system. Each PCI card (and device mounted on the motherboard) has 4 possible interrupts: INTA#, INTB#, INTC#, INTD#. From now on we may call them just A, B, C, and D. Each has its own pin on the edge connector of a card. Thus for a 7-slot system there could be 7 x 4 = 28 different interrupt lines for the cards. But the specs permit a fewer number of interrupt lines so many PCI buses seem to be made with only 4 interrupt lines. This is not too restrictive since interrupts may be shared. Call these lines (wires or traces) W, X, Y, Z. Suppose we designate the B interrupt from slot 3 as interrupt 3B.

One simple method of connecting these lines to the interrupts would be to connect all A interrupts (INTA#) to line W, all B's to X, etc. This method was used several years ago but it is not a good solution. Here's why. If a card only needs one interrupt, it's required that it use A. If it needs two interrupts, it must use both A and B, etc. Thus INTA# is used much more often than INTD#. So one winds up with an excessive number of interrupts sharing the first line (W connected to all the INTA#). To overcome this problem one may connect them in a more complicated way so that each of the 4 interrupt lines (W, X, Y, Z) will share about the same number of interrupts.

One method of doing this would be to have wire W share interrupts 1A, 2B, 3C, 4D, 5A, 6B, 7C. This is done by physically connecting wire W to wires 1A, 2B, etc. Likewise wire X could be connected to wires 1B, 2C, 3D, 4A, 5B, 6C, 7D, etc. Then on startup, the BIOS maps the X, W, Y, Z to IRQs. After that it writes the IRQ that each device uses into a hardware configuration register in each device. From then on any program interrogating this register can find out what IRQ the device uses.

A card in a slot may have up to 8 devices on it but there are only 4 PCI interrupts for it (A, B, C, D). This is OK since interrupts may be shared so that each of the 8 devices (if they exist) can have an interrupt. The PCI interrupt letter of a device is often fixed and hardwired into the device. The assignment of interrupts is done by the BIOS mapping the ISA interrupts to the PCI interrupts as mentioned above. If there are only 4 lines (W, X, Y, and Z) as in the above example, the choices the PCI BIOS has are limited. Some motherboards may use more lines and thus have more choices. The BIOS knows about how this is wired.

The BIOS assigns IRQs (interrupts) so as to avoid conflicts with the IRQs it knows about on the ISA bus. Sometimes in the CMOS BIOS menu one may allow one to assign IRQs to PCI cards.

You might think that since the PCI is using IRQ's (ISA bus) it might be slow since the ISA bus is slow. Not really. The ISA Interrupt Controller Chip(s) has a direct interrupt wire going to the CPU so it can get immediate attention. While signals on the ISA address and data buses may be slow to get to the CPU, the IRQ interrupt signals get there almost instantly.

8.6 ISA Isolation

This is only for the ISA bus. Isolation is a complex method of assigning a temporary handle (id number or Card Select Number = CSN) to each PnP device on the ISA bus. Since there are more efficient (but more complex) ways to do this, some might claim that it's a simple method. Only one write address is used for PnP writes to all PnP devices so that writing to this address goes to all PnP device that are listening. This write address is used to send (assign) a unique handle to each PnP device. To assign this handle requires that only one device be listening when the handle is sent (written) to this common address. All PnP devices have a unique serial number which they use for the process of isolation. Doing isolation is something like a game. It's done using the equivalent of just one common bus wire connecting all PnP devices to the isolation program.

For the first round of the "game" all PnP devices listen on this wire and send out simultaneously a sequence of bits to the wire. The allowed bits are either a 1 (positive voltage) or an "open 0" of no voltage (open circuit or tri-state). To do this, each PnP device just starts to sequentially send out its serial number on this wire, bit-by-bit, starting with the high-order bit. If any device sends a 1, a 1 will be heard on the wire by all other devices. If all devices send an "open 0" nothing will be heard on the wire. The object is to eliminate (by the end of this first round) all but highest serial number device. "Eliminate" means to drop out of this round of the game and thus temporarily cease to listen anymore to the wire. (Note that all serial numbers are of the same length.) When there remains only one device still listening, it will be given a handle (card number).

First consider only the high-order bit of the serial number which is put on the wire first by all devices which have no handle yet. If any PnP device sends out a 0 (open 0) but hears a 1, this means that some other PnP device has a higher serial number, so it temporarily drops out of this round. Now the devices remaining in the game (for this round) all have the same leading digit (a 1) so we may strip off this digit and consider only the resulting "stripped serial number" for future participation in this round. Then go to the start of this paragraph and repeat until the entire serial number has been examined for each device (see below for the all-0 case).

Thus it's clear that only cards with the lower serial number get eliminated during a round. But what happens if all devices in the game all send out a 0 as their high-order bit? In this case an "open 0" is sent on the line and all participants stay in the game. If they all have a leading 0 then this is a tie and the 0's are stripped off just like the 1's were in the above paragraph. The game then continues as the next digit (of the serial number) is sent out.

At the end of the round (after the low-order bit of the serial number has been sent out) only one PnP device with the highest serial number remains in the game. It then gets assigned a handle and drops out of the game permanently. Then all the dropouts from the previous round (that don't have a handle yet) reenter the game and a new round begins with one less participant. Eventually, all PnP devices are assigned handles. It's easy to prove that this algorithm works. The actual algorithm is a little more complex than that presented above since each step is repeated twice to ensure reliability and the repeats are done somewhat differently (but use the same basic idea).

Once all handles are assigned, they are used to address each PnP device for sending/reading configuration data. Note that these handles are only used for PnP configuration and are not used for normal communication with the PnP device. When the computer starts up a PnP BIOS will often do such an isolation and then a PnP configuration. After that, all the handles are "lost" so that if one wants to change (or inspect) the configuration again, the isolation must be done over again.

END OF Plug-and-Play-HOWTO