MKISS(8)

NAME
mkiss - Attach a multi KISS interface

SYNOPSIS
mkiss [-c] [-f] [-h] [-l] [-s speed] [-p pollrate] [-v] [-x n_ptmx] ttyinterface pty ..

DESCRIPTION

Mkiss allows dual port TNCs or multiple TNCs sharing the same serial port to be used with the Linux AX.25 kernel software. The AX.25 software has no support for dual port TNCs or multiple TNCs charing the same serial line. The different ports are addressed by encoding the port number in the control byte of every kiss frame. Mkiss watches a serial port, and routes kiss frames to/from the pseudo ttys. The other side of the pseudo ttys are then attached with kissattach as normal.

Statistics about the operation of mkiss may be obtained by sending the SIGUSR1 signal to the running program. On reception of such a signal mkiss will print a set of statistics to the system log if logging has been enabled.

Although mention is made of using pseudo ttys as the last arguments, these devices may be normal serial ports. However mkiss provides no way in which to set their speed, the speed must therefore be set by some other method.

If the pty argument is "/dev/ptmx", then Unix98 behaviour will automatically take effect. With Unix98 pty's, the slave pty name could not be forseen. That's why mkiss will print the corresponding slave pty name as a separate line on stdout.

If the pty name is the special name "none", no pty is opened. This is useful if you have multiport tnc like the KPC-9612 on i.e. /dev/ttyUSB0 and you only like to handle packets for the second port. The KPC has no option to configure the second tnc to listen on kiss port number 0. Thus, if you like to send all frames from the pty to the kiss port number 1, we need to tell mkiss to tag them for port number 1. This is done by "mkiss /dev/ttyUSB0 none /dev/ptmx". Frames received with port number 0 are discarded.

OPTIONS

-c  This enables a one-byte checksum on each incoming and outgoing KISS frame on the serial port. This checksum is used by G8BPQ KISS roms to maintain the integrity of KISS frames.

-f  This enables a 16-bit checksum on each incoming and outgoing KISS frame on the serial port. This checksum is used by Flexnet Node and BayCom Mailbox to maintain the integrity of KISS frames.

-h  Enables hardware handshaking on the serial line to the TNC. The KISS specification states that no hardware flow control shall be used so the default is off. But some KISS implementations do use hardware flow control.

-l  Enables system logging, the default is off.

-s speed
    Set the speed of the serial port.

-p pollrate
    Enables polling. Polled mode is used by G8BPQ KISS roms to prevent contention on systems where multiple TNCs share the same serial line. Pollrate is interval between polls (in 100ms units).

-v  Display the version.

-x number
    This option is for Unix98 PTYs. It allocates "number" ptys; their names are written to stdout. When -x is used, the pty arguments are optional. "mkiss -x 3 ttyname" is an comfortable alternative to "mkiss ttyname /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx /dev/ptmx".

SEE ALSO
kissattach(8), ifconfig(8), kill(1).

AUTHORS
Tomi Manninen OH2BNS <oh2bns@sral.fi>
Jonathan Naylor G4KLX <g4klx@g4klx.demon.co.uk>
Kevin Uhlir N0BEL <kevinu@flochart.com>