From: doemel@atlas.rbi.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de (Peter Doemel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Adding modems to HP 700 running HP-UX 8.07
Date: 22 Jan 93 09:54:17 GMT

kovar@world.std.com (David C Kovar) writes:


>  This should be simple, but it's not. I want to add a modem to
>my HP 700 to support UUCP services. I used SAM to configure
>the modem, built what I think is the correct cable, connected everything
>and tried to call out - nothing was ever sent out the serial port to
>the modem.

>  Are there known gotchas - bad documentation, missing information, 
>correct cables to use to make this work?

>  Thanks, in advance.

>-David

First of all I want to apologize for the late follow up, but there
aren't many occasions for me to read news :-(

Assuming that your cable is correct and you're using the right
device files (did you configure the modem as `call out' modem in
SAM?) but you still may not receive any data from your
modem, the reason could be the way SAM did it's job.

I am using a 705 running HP-UX 8.07 and on my machine the following
happens:

Among creating the three device files and modifying /etc/ps_data,
one line is appended to /etc/inittab by SAM. In my environment, this line
looks like this:

a1:2:respawn:/etc/getty -h ttyd00 9600

The entry `a1' (it could be `a0' in your case) is unimportant
--- despite the fact, that according to initab(4) `it is strongly
recommended to use a four character sequence' --- and so is
the baud rate (your modem uses the right one and is connected
to the right port, isn't it?).

The critical part is the `2' because starting the X-Window System
(and HP-VUE) puts the system in runlevel 3 (see init(1M) and
/etc/inittab). The getty process, which is to wait for input from
the modem, thus won't be created (type `ps -e | grep getty' to
see if this is the case on your machine).

A solution could be to replace the `:2:' with `:23:' in /etc/inittab
manually (but make a copy of the /etc/inittab before editing, you
might need it :-). After every thing is consistent, you have to reboot.

-----

I had a similar problem using SAM to connect an ATARI-ST to the
RS232 port A as terminal. The line added by SAM to /etc/inittab was:

a0:2:respawn:/etc/getty -h tty02 19200

SAM created /dev/tty02 for RS232 port A but it(/he?) could have used
/dev/tty00, which already existed.

Of course I thought, it must be my fault that the connection didn't
work. I modified the cable several times before I thought of SAM as the
guilty.

-----

Some remarks concerning SAM:

I think, SAM should provide for the possibility that every modification
he does to the system can be undone by him. For example, there is no
way from within SAM to remove the `created' terminals and modems. But
you can look into /usr/sam/log/`your_hostname' to see some (but not all!)
of the things it did to your system.

I'd appreciate a solution similar to the one used by SMIT (a similar
tool on RS/6000's with AIX). SAM should create a (good commented?)
script containing ALL command calls for the actions he plans to perform
and make this script available on demand. Of course this makes it
necessary to prevent SAM from doing some `magic things' directly.

-----

I hope I could help you!

Peter
-- 
+----------------------------+----------------------------------------------+
|        Peter Doemel        | email: doemel@informatik.uni-frankfurt.de    |
|                            |                                              |
|   Johann Wolfgang Goethe   | voice:                                       |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp