The PCMCIA card configuration file is read by cardmgr(8)
at startup time. It defines what resources are available for use by
Card Services, describes how to load and initialize device drivers,
and describes specific PCMCIA cards.
Resource descriptions
There are three kinds of resource entries: include,
exclude, and reserve. Including a resource enables Card
Services to allocate that resource for client drivers. Part of a
resource that is under Card Services control can be excluded if a
specific device in the system uses that resource. And, a resource can
be reserved, so that it will only be assigned to a client if that
client specifically asks for that resource, or no other suitable
resources are available.
There are three resource types: port, memory, and
irq. By default, Card Services assumes that it can use any
interrupt that is not bound by another device driver. However, it
makes no assumptions about IO port and address ranges, because some
Linux drivers do not register their resource usage. So, port and
memory ranges must be explicitly made available for use by PCMCIA
devices.
So, here is a portion of a config file:
include port 0x300-0x3ff, memory 0xd0000-0xdffff
reserve irq 3
exclude irq 4, port 0x3f8-0x3ff
This says that Card Services can allocate ports in the range 0x300 to
0x3ff, and memory in the range 0xd0000 to 0xdffff. It should not use
irq 4 or ports 0x3f8-0x3ff (even if they seem to be available). And
irq 3 should only be allocated if a client specifically asks for it.
Card Services will never allocate resources already allocated by
another kernel device driver. The
include / exclude / reserve mechanism just provides a way of controlling what resources it will
try to use, to accomodate devices that are not registered with the
Linux resource manager.
Device driver descriptions
All Card Services client drivers are identified by a 32-character tag.
Device entries in the config file describe client drivers. The only
required field is the device tag. Additional fields can specify
kernel modules that need to be loaded to make the device available,
and a script to be executed to enable and disable instances of
a device. When an instance of a driver is assigned to a socket, it
gives cardmgr a device name by which this device will be known by the
system (for example, eth0 for a net device, or cua1 for a
modem). This name will be passed to the configuration script. For
example:
device "pcnet_cs"
class "network"
module "net/8390" opts "ei_debug=4", "pcnet_cs"
This says that the pcnet_cs device requires two loadable modules.
The first one is located in the net module subdirectory and will
be loaded with a specific parameter setting. The second module should
be in the pcmcia module subdirectory. The device is in the
network class, so the network script in the configuration
directory will be used to start or stop the device.
It is also possible to specify default options for a particular kernel
module, outside of a device driver declaration. This is convenient
for keeping local configuration options in a file separate from the
main card configuration file. For example:
module "pcnet_cs" opts "mem_speed=600"
Card descriptions
Card declarations map PCMCIA cards to their client drivers. A card
declaration consists of a descriptive name, a method for identifying
the card when it is inserted, and driver bindings. There are six
identification methods: the version method matches a card using
its VERSION_1 id strings, the manfid method matches a card using
its MANFID tuple codes, the pci method matches a CardBus card
using its PCI device ID's, the tuple method matches a card using
any string embedded in any arbitrary CIS tuple, the function
method matches a card using its function ID, and the anonymous
method matches any card that does not have a CIS. This last method
is only intended to be used for old-style Type I memory cards. The
manfid and version methods can be combined to provide more
discrimination; the other methods cannot be combined. For example:
This card is identified by a string at offset 0x0009 in tuple 0x40,
and will be bound to the pcnet_cs driver (which must be already
declared in a driver declaration).
This card is identified by its MANFID tuple contents. The pci
method has the same form, with pci replacing manfid.
card "D-Link DE-650 Ethernet Card"
version "D-Link", "DE-650"
bind "pcnet_cs"
This card will be identified using its VERSION_1 tuple, and will also
be bound to the pcnet_cs driver.
card "Serial port device"
function serial_port
bind "serial_cs"
This binds the serial_cs driver to any card with a CIS function
ID of 0x02, which corresponds to a serial port card. The function ID
can either be a number, or one of the following predefined functions:
memory_card, serial_port, parallel_port,
fixed_disk, video_adapter, network_adapter, and
aims_card.
For situations where several cards share the same driver but need to
be configured differently, card bindings can also override the default
device class associated with a driver, as in:
card "Bluetooth Serial Card"
manfid 0x1234, 0x5678
bind "serial_cs" class "bluetooth"
Finally, the configuration file can specify that Card Services should
use a replacement for the configuration information found on a card.
This can be useful if a card's configuration information is
particularly incomplete or inaccurate. The new information is read
from a binary data file as in this example:
Memory region definitions are used to associate a particular type of
memory device with a Memory Technology Driver, or "MTD". An MTD is
used to service memory accesses in a device-independent fashion. When
a card is identified, Card Services will attempt to load MTD's for all
its memory regions.
A memory region definition begins with the region keyword and a
descriptive string. This is followed by an identification method:
either default to identify an MTD to be used for any otherwise
unclassified region, or jedec to identify a region based on its
JEDEC identification codes. Thus, for example,
region "Intel Series 2 Flash"
jedec 0x89 0xa2
mtd "iflash2_mtd"
specifies that the iflash2_mtd driver will be loaded based on a
JEDEC match.
Including definitions from other files
The source command can be used to include configuration
information from other files. The default config file specifies:
source ./*.conf
source ./config.opts
The arguments for the source command are evaluated using normal
filename wildcard expansion rules. Where available, the source
command is implemented using the wordexp library function, which
also implements environment variable expansion, arithmatic expansion,
and command substitution.
BUGS
The reserve keyword has not actually been implemented in a
useful way for this version of Card Services.
