Ihug Skymedia SM200/SM200D

Technical Info - Packaged Drivers Edition

[ Introduction ]

This document outlines the installation, configuration and operation of the Telemann Skymedia SM200 and SM200D satellite interface cards under the Linux operating system for use with the Ihug wholesale bandwidth service

[ Author ]

This document is maintained by Adam Boileau (adam.boileau@staff.ihug.co.nz)).

[ Overview ]

The Telemann Skymedia satellite interface card receives DVB encapsulated IP from a satellite and delivers them to the host machine's network stack in the manner of a standard ethernet device.

[ System Requirements ]

You will require the following:

A pentium 133 or greater class machine with a free PCI slot. (Note that this is a real requirement - there are serious performance issues related to PCI bus compatibility with pre-133MHz Pentiums/486s.)
A Linux installation witih a version 2.2.x kernel (ihug reccomends Debian)
A good quality 100mbit network card supported by linux. We reccomend the 3com 3c905b.
A satellite dish (>=90cm in most areas) pointed towards PAS8 (the dish used for the standard Ihug wholesale bandwidth service will work for PAS8 customers. PAS2 customers will need a second dish).
A cable from the satellite dish to the location of the machine. This can be via a splitter from your existing PAS8 dish.
A Telemann Skymedia 200 or 200D satellite card. Note that this is not the same card as the Sagem Telsat Turbo used for the standard Ihug wholesale bandwidth service.
The Ihug packaged linux driver tarball for your card, kernel and libc version:

[ Installation ]

This assumes that you have installed your linux distribution, and have basic functionality configured.

Power down the machine, and insert the Skymedia card into a spare PCI slot. Ensure that it is firmly seated in the slot, andt that there is adequate airflow for cooling.
Attach the coaxial cable from your satellite dish to the connector on the back of the card. Ensure that it is firmly connected, and screwed in.
Boot the machine, and check the PCI Plug and Play device list reported by the bios. (Hit pause so you have time to see it). Ensure that your Skymedia is present (as a Network Adapter) and has been assigned a unique IRQ line.
Continue to boot your machine. Log in as root, and check for the existance of the Skymedia in /proc/pci. (type cat /proc/pci).
Untar the driver tarball in /usr/local (type cd /usr/local; tar xvfz sm200d-ihug-2.2.14-glibc.tar.gz)
Change to /usr/local/sm200d-ihug-2.2.14-glibc, and check the README file for any last minute changes

Edit the /usr/local/sm200d-ihug-2.2.14-glibc/skymedia init script and change the following settings (type vi skymedia) :

			# Modify these for your installation
			DEVICE=sm200d                   #this must be 'sm200' or 'sm200d'
			DRIVERPATH=/usr/local/sm200d-ihug-2.2.14-libc6/ #path to drivers
			IPADDRESS=192.168.0.1           #address of the skymedia card
			LOGGING=on                      #turn logging on or off
			LOG=/var/log/smstats.log        #place to log card diagnostics

Copy this into your init script location. On a debian system this is /etc/init.d, on others (such as Redhat) it may be /etc/rc.d/init.d.
Link it into your startup scripts at the appropriate runlevel. On a debian system you can use update-rc.d skymedia defaults 50.
Edit the SkyData.ini file (type vi SkyData.ini) so that it has the following settings.
If you've got an SM200D and this is the first it has been used, then run ./SkyUpgrade to ensure that the firmware is the latest revision
Run the script to load the card: /etc/init.d/skymedia start
Note that the module 'sm200_lnx' or 'sm200d_lnx' is now visible when you do an lsmod
Run the sm200dstats program (or sm200stats). This will show the output from the skymedia stats program, which ouputs status information from the card. If everything is correct, you will see ouput similar to this:
```
	Lock    QPSK    Viterbi Frame   FEC     AGC     Bit Error Rate  kbps    pps
	----    ----    ------- -----   ---     ---     --------------  -----   -----
	Yes     Yes     Yes     Yes     5/6     199     0                   0       0
	
```
If SkyData fails with a
```
	SM200D open failed
	
```
then check that the card is seated and that the module loaded correctly.
If SkyData fails during the QPSK, Frame, Viterbi or Lock tests, then double check your SkyData.ini settings. If they are correct, then have your dish and cable checked by your satellite installer. Adverse conditions such as heavy rain or snow may also affect this.
Upon successful carrier lock, smstats will print information about the quality of signal. It will also print packet and bit throughput rates, and optionally, raw byte and packet counts. It will also note loss and reacquisition of lock. If you have logging turned on in the init script, this output will be logged every minute to the logfile. For more information about smstats, read the smstats documentation.

At this point, your Skymedia card is configured. If you have standard satnet IP service (and it has been activated at the Ihug end), you should now be able to ping the box via its satellite routed IP address. If you have multicast service, configure your multicast application.

[ Operation ]

You can stop and start the Skymedia with the init script /etc/init.d/skymedia.

		Usage: /etc/init.d/skymedia {start|stop|restart}

The /var/log/smstats.log contains useful information, and logs the status of the card. If you loose lock due to bad weather or dish problems, this will be logged. When signal is restored, it will log this also. You may wish to add a watch and/or alarms on this to your monitoring.

[ Troubleshooting ]

If you can see data arriving on the interface (with tcpdump -p -i sm200) but are getting no packets to your application or external interface, then check:

That you have kernel reverse path filtering turned off:
cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/rp_filter
If this is 1, then
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/rp_filter
If you are attempting to forward traffic out another interface, that you have ip_forwarding compiled into your kernel and turned on:
cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
If this is 0, then
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
That you have your firewalling configuration set up to allow forwarding. Consult the IPChains-HOWTO if you are unfamiliar with Linux 2.2.x firewalling.

[ Carrier Specific Settings ]

New Zealand PAS2 DBS MPE

	Frequency       = 12450
	SymbolRate      = 20557
	LocalOscillator = 10750	#or 11300
	Alignment       = H
	LNBHigh         = 1
	LNBPower        = 1
	ToneBurst       = 0
	DiseqcPort      = 0
	DataPID         = 88,3
	MACFilter       = 1
	IPAddress       = 3.1.33.7

New Zealand Skytower MPE

	Frequency       = 12266
	SymbolRate      = 27500
	LocalOscillator = 10750	#or 11300
	Alignment       = H
	LNBHigh         = 1
	LNBPower        = 1
	ToneBurst       = 0
	DiseqcPort      = 0
	DataPID         = 88,3	#data pid
	DataPID		= B4,3 	#multicast pid
	MACFilter       = 1
	IPAddress       = 3.1.33.7

Australian PAS8 DBS/Bandwidth MPE

	Frequency       = 12016
	SymbolRate      = 23999
	LocalOscillator = 10750	#or 11300
	Alignment       = H
	LNBHigh         = 1
	LNBPower        = 1
	ToneBurst       = 0
	DiseqcPort      = 0
	DataPID		= 92,3	#data pid
	DataPID         = 96,3	#multicast pid
	MACFilter       = 1
	IPAddress       = 3.1.33.7