I want to configure a UART to use the Hardware Flow Control lines RTS and CTS in Linux. According to http://linux.die.net/man/3/termios, CRTSCTS enables RTS/CTS (hardware) flow control, and CLOCAL configures the serial port to ignore modem control lines. The 2 flags seem contradictory, how can you have hardware flow control enabled with CRTSCTS and ignore the lines with CLOCAL?
Linux – How do the CLOCAL and CRTSCTS Flags in termios.c_cflag Affect the Serial Port
linuxserial-porttermiosuart
Related Solutions
- DTR - Data Terminal Ready
- DSR - Data Set Ready
- RTS - Request To Send
- CTS - Clear To Send
There are multiple ways of doing things because there were never any protocols built into the standards. You use whatever ad-hoc "standard" your equipment implements.
Just based on the names, RTS/CTS would seem to be a natural fit. However, it's backwards from the needs that developed over time. These signals were created at a time when a terminal would batch-send a screen full of data, but the receiver might not be ready, thus the need for flow control. Later the problem would be reversed, as the terminal couldn't keep up with data coming from the host, but the RTS/CTS signals go the wrong direction - the interface isn't orthogonal, and there's no corresponding signals going the other way. Equipment makers adapted as best they could, including using the DTR and DSR signals.
EDIT
To add a bit more detail, its a two level hierarchy so "officially" both must happen for communication to take place. The behavior is defined in the original CCITT (now ITU-T) standard V.28.
The DCE is a modem connecting between the terminal and telephone network. In the telephone network was another piece of equipment which split off to the data network, eg. X.25.
The modem has three states: Powered off, Ready (Data Set Ready is true), and connected (Data Carrier Detect)
The terminal can't do anything until the modem is connected.
When the terminal wants to send data, it raises RTS and the modem grants the request with CTS. The modem lowers CTS when its internal buffer is full.
So nostalgic!
The /sys
filesystem should contain plenty information for your quest. My system (2.6.32-40-generic #87-Ubuntu) suggests:
/sys/class/tty
Which gives you descriptions of all TTY devices known to the system. A trimmed down example:
# ll /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0/ttyUSB0/tty/ttyUSB0/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:44 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB1 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.3/2-1.3:1.0/ttyUSB1/tty/ttyUSB1/
Following one of these links:
# ll /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0/
insgesamt 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 ../
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 2012-03-28 20:49 dev
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 device -> ../../../ttyUSB0/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:49 power/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 subsystem -> ../../../../../../../../../../class/tty/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 2012-03-28 20:43 uevent
Here the dev
file contains this information:
# cat /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0/dev
188:0
This is the major/minor node. These can be searched in the /dev
directory to get user-friendly names:
# ll -R /dev |grep "188, *0"
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 2012-03-28 20:44 ttyUSB0
The /sys/class/tty
dir contains all TTY devices but you might want to exclude those pesky virtual terminals and pseudo terminals. I suggest you examine only those which have a device/driver
entry:
# ll /sys/class/tty/*/device/driver
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS0/device/driver -> ../../../bus/pnp/drivers/serial/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS1/device/driver -> ../../../bus/pnp/drivers/serial/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS2/device/driver -> ../../../bus/platform/drivers/serial8250/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS3/device/driver -> ../../../bus/platform/drivers/serial8250/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0/device/driver -> ../../../../../../../../bus/usb-serial/drivers/ftdi_sio/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 21:15 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB1/device/driver -> ../../../../../../../../bus/usb-serial/drivers/ftdi_sio/
Best Answer
CLOCAL
ignores only the CD signal.