TWINSTAR(8)

💫 TWINSTAR ✨

okay bestie, welcome to twinstar — a page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation and no, that's not a typo, it's literally section 8 of the manual. she's a little sysadmin gem for your Xorcom Astribank, and we're gonna get through her together 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

twinstar — control the Twinstar feature of a Xorcom Astribank 🦋

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

twinstar {status|jump|enable-wd|disable-wd|ports}

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🫶 DESCRIPTION 🫶

So twinstar is the tool that controls the Twinstar (aka the dual USB port) of a Xorcom Astribank. There's exactly one argument and it's mandatory, no skipsies allowed — that argument is the command you want to run. And the command does its thing on all the Astribanks connected to your system, every single one, periodt.

Technically, all the commands are implemented using Dahdi::Xpp::Mpp, which in turn uses astribank_tool. So using this tool needs root permissions, or otherwise read/write permissions to the USB device. no cap, we can't vibe our way around permissions 😭

The twinstar may be in watchdog mode, which means it will jump to the remote host if it loses contact with the local host. That can happen if the machine is powered down, or hangs, or even if the xpp drivers are unloaded. Which is exactly why the standard twinstar scripts put the Astribanks in twinstar mode on startup and remove it on normal shutdown. it's giving "we plan ahead" 💖

Also important: an Astribank will only jump to the other host — either when asked explicitly or by the watchdog — only if there's a different Astribank connected to the other port and running. Which is why all of this has literally no effect on systems that don't need this functionality. so if that's you? you can keep scrolling, main character 🧚

The commands are:

⭐ status ⭐

Shows the current status of all Astribanks. Heads up though: it only shows Astribanks whose current active USB port is the one connected to this computer. so it's a bit of a "you're my problem now" situation 🙈

Example output:

DEVICE          PORT       WATCHDOG        POWER0     POWER1
usb:001/010     0          on              yes        yes
usb:001/011     0          on              yes        yes

For each Astribank on the system that has Twinstar support we get:

• Device — the address of the device. This is the bus address, e.g. the address you see in lsusb / dahdi_hardware.
• Port — the active USB port on the Astribank. This should always be '0' on the master and always 1 on the slave.
• Watchdog — on if the watchdog is triggered in the Atribank, or off otherwise.
• Power0, Power1 — shows which ports of this Astribank are connected to a USB port of a running computer. This only shows whether or not the USB host provides power.

🔥 ports 🔥

Shows the same 'Port' column of the status command. that's it, that's the whole thing, she's minimal and she knows it 💅

🦋 jump 🦋

Commands all the Astribanks to jump to the other port. This works regardless of whether the watchdog mode is enabled or not 👑 But — and this is a big but — it requires that there is power on the other port. no power, no jump, sorry babe 💀

🌈 enable-wd 🌈

Enables watchdog mode. yes, queen 👑

💜 disable-wd 💜

Disables watchdog mode. nap time 😴

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🍓 FILES 🍓

twinstar mostly uses astribank_tool, which in turn mostly uses USB files under /dev/bus/usb . 🎀

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and that's the whole page bestie!! go forth and control those Astribanks responsibly 💖 this iconic little manual is perl v5.40.1, dated 2026-06-15, and it lives at TWINSTAR(8) — see you in the group chat ✨🫶