--------------------------- LANtronix --------------------------- ETS/EPS --------------------------- Terminal and Printer Server --------------------------- Software Release Notes --------------------------- Version V3.5/9 June 03, 1999 Copyright 1999, Lantronix Release notes are also available via the Lantronix web site (www.lantronix.com) and via anonymous FTP from ftp.lantronix.com. Contact Lantronix or your reseller for more information. This document describes the Lantronix Terminal/Printer Server V3.5/9 software release. Release Summary =============== These release notes will document new features added and problems corrected since the V3.5/7 software release. Software enhancements incorporated in this release require a new version of the Windows 32-bit redirector. Please download and install V1.2/4 redirector software. The V1.2/4 redirector release is available via the Lantronix web site (www.lantronix.com) or via anonymous ftp from ftp.lantronix.com. Supported Platforms ------------------- V3.5/9 provides traditional terminal and print server functionality, including the TCP/IP, Novell, Appletalk, Lan Manager and LAT protocols on the ETS4P, ETS8UF/16UF, ETS8P/16P and the ETS16PR/32PR platforms. Appletalk, Lan Manager and Novell support is limited to print serving. V3.5/9 provides print server functionality, including the TCP/IP, Novell, Appletalk, Lan Manager and LAT protocols on the EPS2-100, EPS4-100, EPS2P2, EPS4P1, EPS1/2, LPS1, MPS1 and MPS100 platforms. Note that these units are print servers. They will not allow outgoing connections to hosts. V3.5/9 provides terminal server functionality, including TCP/IP, Novell and LAT protocols on the MSS1, MSS100, MSS1-T2 and the MSS485 platforms. V3.5/9 provides terminal server functionality, including the TCP/IP protocol on the MSSLite platform. New Features ============ The following is a list of new features in V3.5/9. Network Time Support -------------------- On the MSS family, the ability to query a network time server using the Network Time Protocol (NTP) protocol has been added. Use the command CHANGE TIMESERVER NTP [BROADCAST | IP {address} | PASSIVE] to enable NTP support. The options specify how the MSS should find a NTP server. If "BROADCAST" is selected, the MSS will send out a single broadcast message looking for an NTP server. The first response it receives will become its NTP server, and it will continue to send directed requests to that server. If it receives no responses, it will keep sending periodic broadcasts until it does. If an NTP server acquired by broadcasting fails to respond to four directed queries in a row, the MSS will assume the timeserver has died and will re-broadcast to find a new server. If the "IP" option is specified, the MSS will send directed NTP request packets to the specified IP address. If the "PASSIVE" option is selected, the MSS will simply listen for NTP broadcast messages on the network. The NTP protocol expresses all times in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). In order to display time values in the local time zone, an offset from GMT must be specified. This offset value can be specified using the command: CHANGE TIMESERVER GMTOFFSET hours where "hours" is the offset from GMT to local time. The valid range for "hours" is from -12 to +13 hours and must be an integer value. To enable standard DAYTIME queries (UDP socket 13) use the command: CHANGE TIMESERVER DAYTIME Use the command syntax: CHANGE TIMESERVER NONE to completely disable any type of timeserver queries. By default, timeserver queries of all types are disabled. Modem Mode ---------- "Modem mode" has been added. This mode makes the MSS act like a modem. The following AT commands are supported: ATC command ----- passthru a normal MSS command ATDT ipaddress -- form a TCP connection ATE ------------- turn Echo on (ATE1, default) or off (ATE0) ATH ------------- hangup/disconnect network session ATI ------------- display modem version info ATQ ------------- result codes on (ATQ0, default) or off (ATQ1) ATV ------------- results codes settings. (See description below) ATZ ------------- nominally, reset. Currently ignored. AT&F ------------ reset modem nvr to factory settings AT&V ------------ display current and saved ATV configuration AT&W ------------ write settings to nvr AT&Z ------------ restore settings from nvr Use the command "CHANGE MODEM EMULATION [ENABLED|DISABLED] to enable and disable modem mode. The MSS holds DTR low until it creates a valid network session on the assumption that the attached serial device will have the MSS's DTR output tied to the CD input of the serial device. The MSS also has DSRLOGOUT enabled, so the serial device dropping its DTR signal closes the network connection and returns the modem (and MSS) to an idle state. Modem mode has been designed to allow the serial server to "successfully ignore" commands that it does not support. The following options are supported for the ATVn command. ATV0 -- numeric responses, error on unknown commands ATV1 -- text responses, error on unknown commands ATV2 -- numeric response, accept and ignore unknown commands ATV3 -- text responses, accept and ignore unknown commands Note that when processing modem commands in a multiple command string, i.e. ATE1S10=2...Q0, processing occurs in the order that commands are placed in the string. If an unknown command is encountered in the command line, processing of the command line will stop. In addition, the MSS modem mode emulation will silently allow and ignore all ATSnn=xxx commands since modem mode emulation does not support "S" registers. Enhanced Hostlist Support ------------------------- On the MSS family, the hostlist feature has been enhanced to allow communication with "any 1 host" in addition to the traditional hostlist communication with "all N hosts". If this type of hostlist is enabled, the MSS will attempt to connect to the first host in the hostlist. If that connection fails, it will attempt to connect to the second, if that fails, then the third and in like manner through all entries in the hostlist. As soon as a valid connection is established, normal data flow will occur between the MSS and the connected host. Use the "CHANGE" command to enable the sequential hostlist and then add destinations to the hostlist using the normal "HOST" command. CHANGE DEDICATED SEQLIST HOST ADD TCP 192.0.1.35:T HOST ADD TCP 192.0.2.141:T Note that changes to the hostlist do not take effect until the port is logged out or the MSS is rebooted. The MSS will wait several seconds between each connection attempt to avoid overloading the attached network. If a connection fails, then the search sequence starts again with the "next" host in the hostlist. If the end of the hostlist is reached without successfully establishing a connection, the MSS will restart at the top of the list. (i.e. the hostlist wraps) UDP Passive Sessions -------------------- On the MSS family support has been added for passive UDP based "sessions". If a passive UDP connection is configured, the MSS will accept a UDP packet from any host. When a packet is received, the MSS will communicate with only that host until N seconds of inactivity have occured. After N seconds without activity, the MSS will return to the initial state of accepting a UDP packet from any host. To configure passive session mode, use the command: CHANGE DEDICATED TCP :xxxxUSnnn where there is no host specified before the colon. The "xxxx" specifies the socket number to listen on, "U" parameter specifies UDP mode, the "S" parameter specifies session mode and the "nnn" specifies the timeout value in seconds. If a socket number is not specified, the default socket value for UDP mode is 4096. Any serial data received when the MSS is in "listening mode" will be discarded. Note that specifying the "S" parameter without a timeout value will generate an error and including an IP address with the "S" parameter will also generate an error message. Miscellaneous New Features -------------------------- When configuring a LPD print queue, terminal/print servers will now accept a service name of "LPTnn" where nn is the number of the port to be used for the queue. Note that the service does NOT have to be created on the print server and the print data will be passed through the print server without modification. When using the V1.2/4 32-bit Windows redirector, a break generated by PC software will be passed through the redirected connection and a break condition will be generated on the attached serial port. The "\hh" format can be used for entering arbitrary hex characters for autostart characters and local, forward and backward switch characters. Redirector support was added to the ETS4P and ETS8P/16P products. The ability to form a redirector connection via Netware was added to the terminal server products. On single port print servers (MPS1, LPS1, MPS100) connections to socket 9100 will form a 8-bit clean (raw) connection directly to the parallel port. On single port print servers (MPS1, LPS1, MPS100) LPD print job requests that specify an invalid service name (remote printer name) will form a 8-bit clean (raw) connection directly to the parallel port. On MSS units the transmission of TCP/IP keepalive packets can controlled using the command: CHANGE TCPKEEPALIVE [ ENABLED | DISABLED ] By default, keepalive packets are enabled. Resolved Problems ================= Miscellaneous ------------- When using the rlogin command with the "-l" option to connect to a local service, if passwords were enabled on the service the user was forced to enter the password twice. When performing a local connection on terminal servers, break conditions were not passed to the target port. Ensure that DTR drops when a port is configured for modem control and and a dedicated connection attempt fails. On the MSS485, if the "INIT FACTORY" command was issued with a software version newer than V3.5/5, the console port access mode was by default changed to remote. On the MSSLite, if a redirected connection told the MSSLite to change the serial port baud rate to a value greater than 38.4 Kbaud, an invalid baud rate would be used and the serial port would not function properly. On the ETS32PR, the ZERO COUNTER command did not correctly clear the counters on ports 17-32. Appletalk --------- When a server probed to get an Appletalk address, if an address conflict occured, the server did not correctly pick a new node ID. This could potentially result in duplicate Appletalk node addresses. Novell ------ When configuring a print server to service a queue on a Novell 5 file server with both IPX and IP bound as network protocols, the print server might not attach to the print queue successfully. The MPS100, EPS2-100 and EPS4-100 print servers were not correctly handling Novell 802.2 Ethernet encapsulation types. On the MPS100, EPS2-100, EPS4-100 and MSS100, the amount of RAM reserved for networking buffering was increased to deal with large flat Novell networks. TCP/IP ------ If a 8-bit clean (raw) connection was created between two MSS's, break control was set to remote and a break was received by the MSS serial port, a command sequence (0xff, 0xf3) was sent over the network. The break should have been ignored. When saving an IP address acquired via BOOTP or RARP in NVR, disable DHCP. This maintains the model of a permanent non-DHCP address address source by turning off DHCP. When using a SNMPWALK utility program to walk the character MIB, a server could return responses past the last physical port and could potentially crash. When attempting to make an connection to a remote host, if that host does not have listener on the requested socket return an error message. The parallel and serial MIB support in the ETS4P, the EPS2-100 and the EPS4-100 was not returning the correct number of parallel ports. Allow more than one SNMP entry in the SNMP access table for the EPS2-100 and EPS4-100. Known Problems ============== This release has no known problems.