Re: TCP/IP over USB

OK. So I think that your best chance is getting the RNDIS driver to work
and figuring out how to make more than one work at a time or how to step
from one to the next to the next, giving each a chance to communicate.
That's going to be a challenge, but I don't see another way to accomplish it
if you *have* to have them all connected at once. On the device side, you
should attempt to connect to the IP corresponding to "ppp_peer"; that will
be the PC. The PC should accept connections, if possible, only on the IP
address assigned to the RNDIS adapter(s), so you aren't opening a potential
security hole to the rest of the network. That's about all the hints I
have...

For background, when you connect a USB device, the device tells the PC what
sort of a device it is and the PC loads a corresponding driver for it. That
driver has to know what to send and receive with the device to make things
work. You can't just say, oh, send some TCP/IP data to that USB flash
drive; that doesn't make sense. It's somewhat analogous to saying that you
want to send some TCP/IP data over the PCI bus in your PC. What would that
mean in the context of a video card? The driver for each device knows what
and how to send suitable data to the device on the bus to accomplish the
task for which the driver and the device were designed. What actually goes
over the bus depends on both of those components. So, you can't just treat
USB as a pipe through which you're going to send packets in TCP format; you
need a driver for the device that will allow it to be treated as a network
adapter, which is what RNDIS is. The problem is that Windows Mobile makes
some assumptions about usage patterns that don't really include a single
person having a dozen devices. It's designed to handle a single device
connected at a time.

Paul T.

"PaulH" <paul.heil@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1189111481.073214.12710@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sep 6, 1:32 pm, "Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" <p space tobey no spam AT no
instrument no spam DOT com> wrote:
The RNDIS driver would be installed when ActiveSync is installed on the
PC.
I'm not sure if there's a way to get it separately from that (it's not
'just' a standard RNDIS driver, as I understand it). Nothing new is
required on the device. The Advanced option is set via the ActiveSync
application on the device.

So, it's still unclear to me why you're trying to connect to a server on
the
PC at the same time as you're trying to reconfigure the WiFi and why
you're
doing it for so many devices at once. I can envision some sort of
'provisioning' operation where you connect to the PC server, ask it for
the
right WiFi parameters and reconfigure the WiFi, but, once you've got the
information, I don't see why you'd need to be connected any more (why you
couldn't connect the devices one at a time). If you used ActiveSync, the
means to get the provisioning information would be many. You could have
IIS
running on the PC and get it via the Web browser on the device. You
could,
if you really want to, have a TCP server with your own custom protocol, of
course too; it's just more work. If this is a one-time-only provisioning
operation, it also seems like doing that before putting the device in
service would be even easier. No server, no network client, just a
program
to set the WiFi settings based on an XML file, say. Are you expecting the
devices to travel from one 'configuration station' to another or the WiFi
settings to change frequently?

Paul T.

"PaulH" <paul.h...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1189102652.551646.272590@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Sep 6, 11:55 am, "Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" <p space tobey no spam AT
no instrument no spam DOT com> wrote:
If you plug just one in, does *that* show up? If not, you don't have
the
RNDIS driver installed, I would think, or maybe you have Advanced
Network
Functionality turned off on the device (my device doesn't have that
switch).

How about answering the question that I've asked three times now?

Anyway, why can't you just use WiFi for all of your communication?

Paul T.

"PaulH" <paul.h...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1189096725.278286.137580@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Sep 6, 11:07 am, "Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" <p space tobey no spam AT
no instrument no spam DOT com> wrote:
When you have those devices plugged in, what does the Network
Connections
applet under Settings in the Start menu on the PC show? 10
adapters,
one
for each device?

Anyway, why can't you just use WiFi for all of your communication?

Paul T.

"PaulH" <paul.h...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1189087742.900352.228760@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Sep 6, 8:58 am, "<ctacke/>" <ctacke[at]opennetcf[dot]com>
wrote:
ActiveSync cannot handle that - it's a single-client-only model.

--

Chris Tacke, Embedded MVP
OpenNETCF Consulting
Managed Code in an Embedded Worldwww.OpenNETCF.com

"PaulH" <paul.h...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1189086276.261493.98060@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Sep 5, 5:34 pm, "Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" <p space tobey no
spam
AT
no
instrument no spam DOT com> wrote:
I'm not talking about ultimately, but whether the underlying
network
implementation actually works. Use the ActiveSync connection
and
write
your
server and client code. They don't know how they are
communicating,
anyway.
If that works, then you have your communication channel. All
you
have
to
do
is work around the fact that ActiveSync is dropping the WiFi
connection
(or
just communicate with the PC over WiFi -- you can't do that?).
There
was
a
recent thread in microsoft.public.pocketpc.activesync where a
guy
came
up
with a means of preventing WM5 from dropping the WiFi
connection
(he's
using
an NDIS intermediate driver to ignore unbind requests from
ActiveSync
to
the
WiFi connection; not my favorite way to do it, but it should
work).
Here's
a thread link:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.pocketpc.activesync/b...

Paul T.

"PaulH" <paul.h...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1189031101.632679.90860@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Sep 5, 5:01 pm, "Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" <p space tobey no
spam
AT
no
instrument no spam DOT com> wrote:
It sounds like what you want is to use the network
connectivity
that
ActiveSync 4.x already provides, but without popping up
ActiveSync.
Can
you
do what you want right now with the device connected as an
ActiveSync
guest?
Seems to me like you should be able to. If I understand
correctly,
if
that's the case, you should be able to remove ActiveSync
from
the
PC
side,
leaving the USB RNDIS driver for the mobile device
installed.

Paul T.

"PaulH" <paul.h...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1189029112.158735.71760@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Sep 5, 4:39 pm, "Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" <p space tobey
no
spam
AT
no
instrument no spam DOT com> wrote:
There's nothing built in to do that, other than what
ActiveSync
is
based
on.
Are you the host or the device on USB? If you're the
host
and
you
can
make
the external device look like a network device, you
could
do
what
ActiveSync
does, except in reverse, I guess. If you're the client,
you
could,
in
theory at least, use what ActiveSync does, without
ActiveSync
itself.
You
look like a USB RNDIS adapter and, as long as the
suitable
PC-side
driver
for USB RNDIS is installed, everything should work just
like
when
ActiveSync
is running, but you don't have to sync.

I think you're going to have to tell us what sort of a
device
this
is,
whether you are the device OEM and are in control of the
OS
development
or
not, who is the host and who is the device on the USB
connection,
etc.

Paul T.

"PaulH" <paul.h...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1189027014.772712.232320@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Is there a way to do TCP/IP communications over a USB
connection?
Preferably one that does not involve active-sync.
If anybody has any samples or can point me to the
proper
API
calls,
I
would appreciate it.

Thanks,
PaulH

What I'm looking for is a way to communicate with a group
of
WM2005
and WM2006 devices over USB. The PC would be the server
and
the
WM2005
devices the clients, in this case.

I looked up RNDIS as a possibility, but haven't seen a
whole
lot
in
the way of examples for using that online. Are there any?

I have access to all of the OS development libraries.

Thanks,
PaulH

I'd ultimately like to be able to control the 802.11
connection,
so
I
can't actually use active-sync even as a guest since it
does...unfortunate things to the 802.11 radio in some
versions
of
WM2005. But, uninstalling it from the host PC side, should
be
okay.

So, what do I need to do to communicate with the device over
USB?

Thanks,
PaulH

If I have 10 WM2005 devices attached to a PC by a USB hub, how
do
I
address them individually? Can ActiveSync support more than one
device
at a time?

Thanks,
Paul

Exactly my problem. So, how do I use the USB connection as a
TCP/IP
network device?

All that shows is the 2 network cards I have in my system normally. I
don't see the WM2005 devices at all.

-PaulH

I can't use the 802.11 radio for the communications because I intend
to use this connection to modify the state of the 802.11 radio. If I
modified it in a way

...

read more »

I have ActiveSync v4.5.0 installed on the PC. ActiveSync on the device
appears to be pretty simple and doesn't have much in the way of
options other than setting the device to connect via BlueTooth, IR, or
USB.

I'm trying to set up a test station where a group of devices can be
attached by USB to a host PC and given a series of commands to test
the functionality of the overall system. The device would then send
the results of those commands back to the PC for validation and
logging purposes. Currently, I'm limited to configuring these tests on
each individual device and collecting the logs myself via SD-card.

-PaulH


.

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