Reading the network status

Moved here from this topic.

NDA my arse.

You cannot hope to NDA something that’s open source.
That is about as stupid as trying to talk sense into Trump.
Are you really sure you still need an NDA for this? It’s not MBufManager or Resolver…

God I wish there was a tool that would use the C preprocessor to examine a file, and all of the linked files, to locate a definition of a certain variable, definition, deftype, or struct.
I finally found what I wanted in dcistructs.h within TCPIPLibs.

Anyway…

For the link status:

SYS "EtherUSB_Stats", A, B, C

where ‘A’ is either 0 to return &FF for the supported things, or 1 to return actual information.
and ‘B’ is the network device unit number (this will probably be zero)
and ‘C’ is a pointer to a block of memory (100 bytes)

A structure is filled in (all values UNSIGNED). It has the following layout (for EtherUSB):

byte +0   Interface type (see below)
byte +1   Link status (see below)
byte +2   Link polarity (is '1' if correct)
byte +3   --
word +4   --
word +8   --
word +12  --
word +16  --
word +20  --
word +24  --
word +28  TX frames
word +32  TX bytes
word +36  TX general errors
word +40  --  (is actually
word +44  --   eight bytes)
word +48  --
word +52   --
word +56  --
word +60  --
word +64  --
word +68  Jabbers (it actually sets this, but doesn't tell you it does!)
word +72  --
word +76  Unwanted frames
word +80  RX frames
word +84  RX bytes
word +88  RX general errors
word +92  --  (is actually
word +96  --   eight bytes)

The interface type (non-exhaustive; ‘*’ means ones EtherUSB knows about):

 2  10base2
 3  10baseT *
 7  Econet
 8  Serial
12  100baseTX *
14  100baseT4 *
21  1000baseT (4 pair cat 5)

The link status is built up as follows:

bit  0 : OK (device functional)
bit  1 : Up (link is connected)
bit  2 : See below  
bit  3 : See below 
bit  4 : Set if Full Duplex

Bits 2 and 3 are:
  Bit 3   Bit 2   Meaning
  0       1       Broadcast
  1       0       Multicast
  1       1       Promiscuous

The following will demonstrate:

>*EJInfo
EtherUSB driver for USB network adapters, version 0.37, by James Peacock
[snip]
ej0: SMSC95xx, USB bus 1, device 3, Devices:$.USB3, up
[snip]
Interface media      : 100baseTX full duplex
Interface polarity   : Correct
Controller mode      : Multicast
Packets sent         : 202454
Packets received     : 896505
Bytes sent           : 39846858
Bytes received       : 124162490
[snip]
>DIM x% 127
>SYS "EtherUSB_Stats", 1, 0, x%
>P. x%?0, x%?1, x%?2, x%!28, x%!32, x%!80, x%!84
        12        27         1    202454  39846858    896505 124162490

Where the interface type is 100baseTX, the status bits are ‘27’ (%11011) which means (msb) Full Duplux, Multicast, Up, OK (lsb)), the polarity is correct, and you can see the Tx/Rx frames and bytes match.

As this appears to be a DCI thingummy, I would imagine other EtherXXX_Stats calls would return similar information. Call with R0 = 0 and see what’s set to &FF to see what the driver thinks it will return if asked (R0 = 1).
It actually uses R0 AND 1 to choose between “Say what you support” and “Return the info”, so other drivers may give meaning to other bits in R0.

In the codebase, it’s mostly in ..bsd.RiscOS.Sources.Networking.Ethernet.EtherUSB.c.net, function net_stats (towards the bottom).

God I wish there was a tool that would use the C preprocessor to examine a file, and all of the linked files, to locate a definition of a certain variable, definition, deftype, or struct.

I would never call you a tool :)
You’re rather useful never the less and seem much better suited to the task than any pre-programmed setup.

I finally found what I wanted in dcistructs.h within TCPIPLibs.

See. Result in almost no time at all.

You cannot hope to NDA something that’s open source.
That is about as stupid as trying to talk sense into Trump.
Are you really sure you still need an NDA for this? It’s not MBufManager or Resolver…

You’d have to get the official word from ROOL, but last time I asked the DCI4 Spec document (which defines what each bit signifies, amongst other things) contained IP belonging to ANT Ltd and so required you to sign an NDA before you were granted permission to read it. It is possible that you could read the terms of the NDA to mean that making the OS Open Source negated the NDA, but that probably depends on how much you can afford to spend on lawyers! I’d be delighted of ROOL were to officially confirm that the DCI4 spec was no longer covered by an NDA!

I can’t comment on the correctness of the rest of your post as I’m still under the NDA until 2022!

so required you to sign an NDA before you were granted permission to read it.

I can understand that back in the 90s this would potentially have made commercial sense (just off the top of my head, it’s MBufManager, right?) given that a company created certain parts of the network stack for Acorn.
But in this day and age, it’s kind of dumb. And why we’re stuck with a naff Resolver (NDA, so no bored person is going to wander around the source and try to improve it).

read the terms of the NDA

Better yet, just ignore that nonsense completely. Never seen it, never signed it, just looked at the code. :-)
Of course, it’s a different situation for you as you have seen it…

I can’t comment on the correctness of the rest of your post

I know it is correct, at least for EtherUSB, because it’s what the source does. If your document disagrees, the document is wrong.
Hmm, I seem to have accidentally engaged nemo mode for a moment there.

as I’m still under the NDA until 2022!

Jeez, in RISC OS terms that’s practically tomorrow.

I was cleaning up the mess in the staff break room this morning. There’s a massive flat TV fixed to the wall. It was playing a channel called CSTAR, which is a DTV incarnation of MTV. Well, MTV when it used to play music videos and not all that reality crap.
Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” came on, and I was sort of mumbling the words (correctly).
After, the announcer voice said that she had massive success with that song in 2002, eighteen years ago.
I nearly died right then and there.
Eighteen years.
Fuu…………………

See. Result in almost no time at all.

Actually, about half an hour of just working my way through all the #include lines. Bearing in mind that header files that one includes can include others themselves.

You’re rather useful never the less

<blush>

and seem much better suited to the task

I was agitated by this whole NDA thing referring to something that I can see the source of. It didn’t make sense.

And, besides, it’s another dark corner of the OS dusted off. I’ll leave somebody else to drop it into the documentation wiki though.

I hope that come 2022 Andrew will tell us the API of MBufManager so we can exorcise another binary blob from the OS. I think the network bounty will help get rid of Resolver (given it’s not IPv6).

Better yet, just ignore that nonsense completely. Never seen it, never signed it, just looked at the code. :-)

So, if you were to check the source and basically “reverse engineer” the spec people wouldn’t need to read a document that may not actually accurately describe the implementation anyway…

the announcer voice said that she had massive success with that song in 2002

Um, raise you, search “don’t leave me driftwood on the shore” released the year I could no longer claim teen status: a more recent rendition being me on Cov station heading to the 2018 GBBF.

I think mom liked the Moody Blues.

River of Dreams is the year that I was no longer considered a teenager. I write it like that because I have the mind of a bored teenager stuck in the body of an old fart…

if you were to check the source

Um… Guys… https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~theom/riscos/docs/dci4-1.01.txt

Me: I’ll just save that file, in case I ever need it.

My computer: dci4-1.01.txt already exists; do you want to replace it?

Well then…

Of course, that appears to be version 1.01 of the document, whereas the version I saw was 4.07!

Of course, that appears to be version 1.01 of the document, whereas the version I saw was 4.07!

A 0.01 increment per spelling mistake or typo corrected would fill most of the difference I think :)