What follows are some steps in troubleshooting Etherlite problems. The most important thing to keep in mind is to troubleshoot the basics first (power, cables, etc.), then work your way up to driver level.

First things first, what is the status of the LEDs on your Etherlite? You should have a solid Link light (indicating a good connection to the network), and an ON LED that flickers momentarily when the unit is first powered on, then eventually goes solid. If you have anything other than this behavior, please refer to this article for more detailed information. If the ON LED is still flickering, you will need to give your Etherlite an IP address first. One way of doing this is with the DgIpServ utility found on our website as a seperate Windows utility or built into the Unix Realport driver (see man page of same name for details on usage). Etherlites also have a built-in utility called the Etherlite Boot Console which can be used as well.

So now that you've verified your Etherlite has a good solid connection to the network and has an IP address, can you reach that IP from the Host Server where you'll be running the Etherlite driver? Can you successfully ping the Etherlite? If you can ping the Etherlite, it has an IP address and you've verified a basic network path from Host Server to Etherlite. If you can not ping, it might be time to enlist the aid of your Network Administrator in troubleshooting the network path between Etherlite and Host Server.

If you can ping the Etherlite, the next step is to see if not-so-basic network services can run between Host Server and Etherlite. If you have a Windows Host Server, you can use the Verlog utility from Digi, which can be downloaded from this page. If on a Unix server, rlogin to the Etherlite.

Using rlogin (unix) or verlog.exe (windows), connect to your Etherlite's IP address. Once successfully connected, you should see the "?" Etherlite prompt. Issue the "ver" command to check the firmware version. At this point, it would be a good idea to talk about the two firmware/driver types for the Etherlite product line. Bottom line is that the FAS and Realport drivers/firmwares are incompatible with each other, and that only the Realport driver/firmware is supported by Digi (FAS driver/firmware is end-of-lifed and no longer supported). If you can not connect to the Etherlite with rlogin/verlog, it may indicate that the Etherlite is using an IP address already in use on the network. Power the Etherlite off and try pinging that same IP address. Can you still ping it? If so, your Etherlite has a duplicate IP address to something else on the network and will need to be resolved before continuing.

As for the two types of Etherlite driver/firmware, they work similar to each other with the exception that the FAS driver/firmware uses TCP port 10001, whereas Realport uses TCP port 771. You can use rlogin/verlog to find out whether or not the Etherlite driver is connecting to the Etherlite.

If the TCP socket connection (port 771 or 10001) is being made to the Etherlite, the devices on your Host Server should have been created and useable. On a Unix system you can use command "stty -a < /dev/ttydevice" to determine whether the device exists. If you get a good output from that command, the device exists and should be useable. You can make a similar determination on a Windows system by attempting to open the Com port with a terminal emulation program such as Hyperterm. If the stty command or Hyperterm open hangs or you get an error message, further troubleshooting will be necessary and you would want to call Digi Technical Support at this time.

If the stty command or port open are successful, you can use a loopback plug to find out if you can echo data through the port. To do this in Hyperterm, simply insert the loopback plug and start typing. Check here for a popular way to do this on Unix systems. If the loopback test passes but you can't talk to some other device plugged into the Etherlite serial port, it would be a good time to verify the pinout and type of cabling you're using.

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