The KSermon Handbook
Bernhard Kuhn, (kuhn@lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de)
Version 0.3.1, 31 DEC 1998
This Handbook describes KSermon Version 0.3.1
Introduction
Usage
Compiling
Know Bugs
Troubleshooting
Screenshots
Copyright
Warrenty
Thanks
Introduction
KSermon is an system-utility to watch the activities on a given
serial port. The current state of the TX,RX,CTS,RTS,DTR,DSR,DCD
and RI lines are shown by some kind of LEDs. Furthermore, the current
TX/RX
transfer rates are visualisized using bars and within an osziloscope
(this is nice to analyse the transfer characteristics). Additionaly, you
can watch the online-time (depended to the DCD-Signal) and the amount of
received and transmitted data since the serial-device was opened the first
time.
Usage
As KSermon uses the session-management system from KDE, the user only has
to start the programm, and then choose the device to observe from the Options->Preferences
menu. It is also possible to change the update interval and the maximum
displayed transfer-rate during runtime within the Preferences.
There is a build-in digital RC-like low-pass filter. The timing constant
"tau" is controlled within the preferences. When "tau" is less than "interval",
then the low-pass filter is turned off (due to numerical problems)!
Compiling
For proper compilation, you will have to install the kernel-patch included
in sermon-0.23; For proper execution, you will have to recompile the kernel!
Then, just type "make", but be shure, that Qt and KDE are installed
and $QTDIR and $KDEDIR are set properly.
Type "make install" to install the binary and the Manual-pages (html).
Be sure, that you are superuser!
The program has been compiled for Linux-2.0.36 and Linux-2.2.0-pre1,
using the GUI-Toolkit Qt 1.40 from Trolltech,
the K Desktop Environemet (Version 1.0)
and serialmon-0.23
from Peter Fox (fox@roestock.demon.co.uk).
Known Bugs
-
Errors are displayed in the terminal, if the size to small to draw an osziloscope.
-
Better start ksermon, before using a serial line (i.e. with kppp). Doing
it vice verca may hang up the line (don't know why).
-
O-scope does not rescale when maximum rate is changed.
-
The Preferences look very ugle, when using Motif-Style or large fonts.
Tell me, if you find more :-)
Troubleshooting
-
Sometimes ksermon needs the suid-bit set. This may be the case when the
process using the serial line has suid (i.e. pppd) ?!.
-
Sometimes it is better to use /dev/cua[0-3] instead of /dev/ttyS[0-3]
Copyright
This program and documentation is copyright B. Kuhn (kuhn@eikon.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de)
and distributed under the GPL (see COPYING).
Copyright notices are not to be removed or altered.
Warranty
There is NO WARRANTY for this program.
This program has been compiled on my machine using gcc 2.7.2.3, Qt 1.40,
sermon-0.23 and linux (2.0.36 and 2.2.0-pre1), and it seems to work for
me.
Thanks
Thanks to Peter Fox for his excelent serial device extension !
Bernhard Kuhn, Tue Dec 31 02:41:33 MET 1998