SLIP/PPP over USB

A friend of mine mentioned a sub-protocol of USB called ACM where it might be easier to slip/ppp over usb. USB is a serial bus, so to slip/ppp over it should not be out of the question. Does anyone know of anything along these lines?

Comment in linux/drivers/usb/acm.c
* ... Did some
* testing at 3Com => zmodem uload+download works, pppd had trouble but
* seems to work now. Changed Menuconfig texts "Communications Device
* Class (ACM)" might be a bit more intuitive.

Should work linux to linux when the linux USB driver is available. Presumably
there is something for windows too but... who cares?

Paul

Me... =)
My linux boxen don't have USB yet.. =(

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

The way USB is implemented on the empeg (and in the not-ready-for-release 2.3 driver on the host end) is a transparent, reliable, bidirectional pipe. Basically, running PPP over it should simply be a case of pointing ppp at the right devices.

Hugo

>Comment in linux/drivers/usb/acm.c
>* ... Did some
>* testing at 3Com => zmodem uload+download works, pppd had trouble but
>* seems to work now. Changed Menuconfig texts "Communications Device
>* Class (ACM)" might be a bit more intuitive.

>Should work linux to linux when the linux USB driver is available. Presumably
>there is something for windows too but... who cares?

I'd like to be able to hit my empeg over USB from any machine, even a mac. Plus my linux box doesn't have USB.

Thanks for the info though.

>The way USB is implemented on the empeg (and in the not-ready-for-release 2.3 >driver on the host end) is a transparent, reliable, bidirectional pipe. >Basically, running PPP over it should simply be a case of pointing ppp at the >right devices.

How hard was it to implement emplode from windows to the empeg? Do you have any resources available dealing with USB in windows?

Thanks.

How hard was it to implement emplode from windows to the empeg? Do you have any resources available dealing with USB in windows?

Not easy. Especially since we were writing the slave driver for the empeg at the same time. We spent many days with Hugo saying things like "Send by 10 bytes" and I would type stuff at the Windows 98 command prompt...

You should probably take a look at the bulkusb driver on the Microsoft DDK site (I think it's http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev). The DDK contains a little information on USB. We've also got a copy of Developing Windows NT Device Drivers (Dekker & Newcomer) which was useful when we wanted to simplify our driver design but doesn't really go into much depth on USB.

Also, take a look at http://www.usb.org/.

(I tried marking up the URLs but it corrupted the message :-( )



--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)

The windows usb driver was a nightmare. MS has some example code, but it has its faults and documentation is patchy, verging on nonexistent.

Hugo