The cardmgr utility monitors the PCMCIA slots. It will scan the /proc/devices file searching for the pcmcia entry. If this entry isn't there then cardmgr will exit.

In order to get the kernel to write an entry into /proc/devices it is necessary to load the relevant modules. Only once kernel support is enabled will cardmgr work properly. The module names are kept in the following configuration files:

For RedHat like distributions: /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia

For Debian like distributions: /etc/pcmcia.conf

The main module is called pcmcia_core and uses two other modules called yenta_socket and ds.

One can start cardmgr on the commandline after having inserted the above kernel modules

modprobe pcmcia_core
modprobe yenta_socket
modprobe ds
cardmgr
cardmgr[18772]: watching 2 sockets

But it is best to use the rc-script provided with the pcmcia-cs package:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia restart

The configuration file with a database of possible devices (e.g modems, wireless network interfaces, memory cards ...) is called /etc/pcmcia/config.

To get infornation about your PCMCIA card use the cardctl utility. Put the card into the pcmcia slot and run:

cardctl info
....snip....
PRODID_1="Xircom"
PRODID_2="CardBus Ethernet 10/100 + Modem 56"
PRODID_3="CBEM56G"
....snip....

We can check that this card is listed in /etc/pcmcia/config. The next table shows the information relevant to this card, in particular the xircom_cb module needed.

# /etc/pcmcia/config - section relevent to scanned card
card "Xircom CBEM56G-100 CardBus 10/100 Ethernet + 56K Modem"
version "Xircom", "*", "CBEM56G"
bind "xircom_cb" to 0