BAYCOMUSB(8)

💖 BAYCOMUSB(8) — bestie edition 💖

okay so you found a page from the Linux AX.25 Utilities Manual, and the star of the show is baycomusb(8). sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, we're doing this.

✨ NAME ✨

baycomusb — the Baycom USB modem diagnostics utility. that's it, that's the whole vibe check. 👑

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

like, here's the shape of it, exactly as it comes:

baycomusb [ -sv ] [-D usbdevfsmountdir] [-C configfilepath] [-d
busnr:devnr] [-i index] [-I ifname] [-t testname]
[--drv=usbdevfsmountdir] [--config=configfilepath]
[--device=busnr:devnr] [--index=index] [--ifname=ifname]
[--test=testname]

short flags, long flags, pick your fighter. 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so baycomusb is a user mode driver for the Baycom EPP modem family. rn it supports the conventional EPP modem (the one using the IDT 72xxx FIFO's, iconic) and the FPGA (Xilinx XCS10) variant. ✨

the driver automatically initializes the FPGA modem depending on the requested mode. the way that it just... does that. no notes. 💜

here's the part where it's actually being smart: to keep the resident memory footprint small (approx 20kBytes plus standard system shared libraries like libc — yes literally tiny, she's efficient 💅), the initialization code lives inside a shared library called baycomfpga_init.so.

and bestie, she can automatically attach herself to the kernel network stack as a network interface (usually called ax0). main character energy fr fr. 🎀 to do that she needs the Linux Kernel MKISS driver — so go enable CONFIG_MKISS, no cap.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

baycomusb accepts the following options:

• -h, --help — shows you an overview of all the command line parameters and then exits. the "help me bestie" button. 🫶
• -v, --verbose — makes the output more verbose. you can stack it up, cumulate it, keep going. 🗣️
• -D, --drv — sets the mount directory of the USB device filesystem. the default is /proc/bus/usb.
• -C, --config — sets the config file. the default is /etc/ax25/baycomusb.xml.
• -d, --device — picks the device by bus number and device number.
• -i, --index — picks the device by a number.
• -I, --ifname — the name of the AX.25 network interface when doing the final setup (this one gets used by the kernel driver).
• -t, --test — specifies the test to be performed.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

ifconfig (8), sethdlc (8),

like, go read those too, they're her friends. 💖

👑 AUTHOR 👑

baycomusb was written by Thomas Sailer, HB9JNX/AE4WA (sailer@ife.ee.ethz.ch). absolute legend, we stan. 🫡

aaaand that's the whole page bestie. this was BaycomUSB 0.1, dated 13 May 1998 — yeah she's vintage, she's timeless, she's still serving 💅✨ byeee 🦋💖