isdntrace(8)

NAME

isdntrace - isdn4bsd ISDN protocol trace utility

SYNOPSIS

isdntrace [-a] [-b] [-d] [-f filename] [-h]  [-i]  [-l]  [-n
number] [-o]
          [-p filename] [-r] [-u number] [-x] [-B] [-F] [-P]
[-R unit]
          [-T unit]

DESCRIPTION

The isdntrace utility is part of the isdn4bsd package and is

used to provide the user with a mnemonic display of the layers 1, 2 and

3 protocol
activities on the D channel and hex dump of the B channel(s)

activities.

Together with two passive supported cards and an easy to

build cable it
can also be used to monitor the complete traffic on a S0 bus

providing S0
bus analyzer features.

The isdntrace utility is only available for passive support

ed cards.

Note

All filenames, user specified or default, get a date and

time stamp
string added in the form -yyyymmdd-hhmmss: a hyphen, four

digits year,
two digits month and day, a hyphen and two digits hour, min

utes and seconds. Tracefiles no longer get overwritten. In case a new

filename is
needed within a second, the filename-generating mechanism

sleeps one second.

In case the program is sent a USR1 signal, a new user speci

fied or
default filename with a new date and timestamp is generated

and opened.

The following options can be used:

-a Run isdntrace in analyzer mode by using two passive

cards and a

custom cable which can be build as described in the

file
cable.txt in the isdn4bsd source distribution. One

card acts as
a receiver for the transmitting direction on the S0

bus while the
other card acts as a receiver for the receiving di

rection on the
S0 bus. Complete traffic monitoring is possible us

ing this
setup.

-b switch B channel tracing on (default off).

-d switch D channel tracing off (default on).

-f Use filename as the name of a file into which to

write tracing

output (default filename is isdntrace<n> where n is

the number of
the unit to trace).

-h switch display of header off (default on).

-i print layer 1 (I.430) INFO signals to monitor layer

1 activity

(default off).

-l switch displaying of Layer 2 (Q.921) frames off (de

fault on).

-n This option takes a numeric argument specifying the

minimum frame

size in octets a frame must have to be displayed.

(default 0)

-o switch off writing trace output to a file (default

on).

-p Use filename as the name of a file used for the -B

and -P options

(default filename is isdntracebin<n> where n is the

number of the
unit to trace).

-r Switch off printing a raw hexadecimal dump of the

packets preced

ing the decoded protocol information (default on).

-u Use number as the unit number of the controller card

to trace

(default 0).

-x Switch on printing of packets with a non-Q.931 pro

tocol discrimi

nator. (default off).

-B Write undecoded binary trace data to a file for lat

er or remote

analyzing (default off).

-F This option can only be used when option -P (play

back from binary

data file) is used. The -F option causes playback

not to stop at
end of file but rather to wait for additional data

to be available from the input file.

This option is useful when trace data is accumulated

in binary
format (to save disk space) but a monitoring func

tionality is
desired. (default off).

-P Read undecoded binary trace data from file instead

from device

(default off).

-R Use unit as the receiving interface unit number in

analyze mode.

-T Use unit as the transmitting interface unit number

in analyze

mode.

When the USR1 signal is sent to a isdntrace process, the

currently used
logfiles are reopened, so that logfile rotation becomes pos

sible.

The trace output should be obvious. It is very handy to

have the following standard texts available when tracing ISDN protocols:

I.430 ISDN BRI layer 1 protocol description.
Q.921 ISDN D-channel layer 2 protocol description.
Q.931 ISDN D-channel layer 3 protocol description.
1TR6 German-specific ISDN layer 3 protocol descrip

tion.

(NOTICE: decoding of the 1TR6 protocol is in

cluded but not
supported since i dont have any longer access

to a 1TR6
based ISDN installation.)

The isdntrace utility automatically detects the layer 3 pro

tocol being
used by looking at the Protocol Discriminator (see:

Q.931/1993 pp. 53).

FILES

/dev/i4btrc<n>

The devicefile(s) used to get the trace messages

for ISDN card
unit <n> out of the kernel.

EXAMPLES

The command:

isdntrace -f /var/tmp/isdn.trace

will start D channel tracing on passive controller 0 with

all except B
channel tracing enabled and logs everything into the output

file
/var/tmp/isdn.trace-yyyymmdd-hhmmss (where yyyymmdd and hh

mmss are
replaced by the current date and time values).

SEE ALSO

isdnd(8)

STANDARDS

ITU Recommendations I.430, Q.920, Q.921, Q.930, Q.931

FTZ Richtlinie 1TR3, Band III

ITU Recommendation Q.932 (03/93), Q.950 (03/93)

ETSI Recommendation ETS 300 179 (10/92), ETS 300 180 (10/92)

ETSI Recommendation ETS 300 181 (04/93), ETS 300 182 (04/93)

ITU Recommendation X.208, X.209

AUTHORS

The isdntrace utility was written by Gary Jennejohn

<gj@FreeBSD.org> and
Hellmuth Michaelis <hm@FreeBSD.org>.

This manual page was written by Hellmuth Michaelis.

BUGS

Still some or more left.

BSD November 1, 2000

BSD