nge(7D) Devices nge(7D)NAMEnge - Gigabit Ethernet driver for Nvidia Gigabit family of network
interface controllers
SYNOPSIS
/dev/nge
DESCRIPTION
The nge Gigabit Ethernet driver is a multi-threaded, loadable, clon‐
able, GLD v3-based STREAMS driver supporting the Data Link Provider
Interface dlpi(7P), on Nvidia ck8-04/mcp55/mcp51 Gigabit Ethernet con‐
trollers. The controller is a Mac chipset that works with PHY functions
and provides three-speed (copper) Ethernet operation on the RJ-45 con‐
nectors.
The nge driver functions include controller initialization, frame
transmit and receive, promiscuous and multicast support, and error
recovery and reporting.
The nge driver and hardware support auto-negotiation, a protocol speci‐
fied by the 1000 Base-T standard. Auto-negotiation allows each device
to advertise its capabilities and discover those of its peer (link
partner). The highest common denominator supported by both link part‐
ners is automatically selected, yielding the greatest available
throughput while requiring no manual configuration. The nge driver also
allows you to configure the advertised capabilities to less than the
maximum (where the full speed of the interface is not required), or to
force a specific mode of operation, irrespective of the link partner's
advertised capabilities.
APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE
The cloning, character-special device /dev/nge is used to access all
nge devices.
The nge driver is dependent on /kernel/misc/mac, a loadable kernel mod‐
ule that provides the DLPI and STREAMS functionality required of a LAN
driver. See gld(7D) for more details on supported primitives.
You must send an explicit DL_ATTACH_REQ message to associate the opened
stream with a particular device (PPA). The PPA ID is interpreted as an
unsigned integer data type and indicates the corresponding device
instance (unit) number. The driver returns an error (DL_ERROR_ACK) if
the PPA field value does not correspond to a valid device instance num‐
ber for the system. The device is initialized on first attach and de-
initialized (stopped) at last detach.
The values returned by the driver in the DL_INFO_ACK primitive in
response to the DL_INFO_REQ are as follows:
o Maximum SDU (with jumbo frame) is 9000. (ETHERMTU - defined
in <sys/ethernet>.
o Minimum SDU is 0.
o DSLAP address length is 8 bytes.
o MAC type is DL_ETHER.
o SAP length value is -2 meaning the physical address compo‐
nent is followed immediately by a 2-byte sap component
within the DLSAP address.
o Broadcast address value is Ethernet/IEEE broadcast address
(FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF).
Once in the DL_ATTACHED state, you must send a DL_BIND_REQ to associate
a particular Service Access Point (SAP) with the stream.
CONFIGURATION
By default, the nge driver performs auto-negotiation to select the link
speed and mode. Link speed and mode can be any one of the following,
(as described in the IEEE803.2 standard):
1000 Mbps, full-duplex.
1000 Mbps, half-duplex.
100 Mbps, full-duplex.
100 Mbps, half-duplex.
10 Mbps, full-duplex.
10 Mbps, half-duplex.
The auto-negotiation protocol automatically selects speed (1000 Mbps,
100 Mbps, or 10 Mbps) and operation mode (full-duplex or half-duplex)
as the highest common denominator supported by both link partners.
Because the nge device supports all modes, the effect is to select the
highest throughput mode supported by the other device.
Alternatively, you can set the capabilities advertised by the nge
device using ndd(1M). The driver supports a number of parameters whose
names begin with adv_ (see below). Each of these parameters contains a
boolean value that determines if the device advertises that mode of
operation. The adv_pause_cap indicates if half/full duplex pause is
advertised to the link partner. The adv_asym_pause_cap parameter can be
set to advertise to link partner that asymmetric pause is desired. In
addition, nge uses adv_100T4_cap to advertise its 100T4 capability. The
adv_autoneg_cap parameter controls whether auto-negotiation is per‐
formed. If adv_autoneg_cap is set to 0, the driver forces the mode of
operation selected by the first non-zero parameter in priority order as
listed below:
(highest priority/greatest throughput)
adv_1000fdx_cap 1000Mbps full duplex
adv_100fdx_cap 100Mpbs full duplex
adv_100hdx_cap 100Mbps half duplex
adv_10fdx_cap 10Mpbs full duplex
adv_10hdx_cap 10Mpbs half duplex
(lowest priority/least throughput)
For example, to prevent the device nge2 from advertising gigabit capa‐
bilities, enter (as super-user):
# ndd -set /dev/nge2 adv_1000fdx_cap 0
All capabilities default to enabled. Note that changing any capability
parameter causes the link to go down while the link partners renegoti‐
ate the link speed/duplex using the newly changed capabilities.
You can obtain the current parameters settings using ndd -get. In addi‐
tion, the driver exports the current state, speed, duplex setting, and
working mode of the link via ndd parameters (which are read only and
may not be changed). For example, to check link state of device nge0:
# ndd -get /dev/nge0 link_status
1
# ndd -get /dev/nge0 link_speed
100
# ndd -get /dev/nge0 link_duplex
2
# ndd -get /dev/nge0 link_rx_pause
1
# ndd -get /dev/nge0 link_tx_pause
1
The output above indicates that the link is up and running at 100Mbps
full-duplex with its rx/tx direction pause capability. In addition, the
driver exports its working mode by loop_mode. If it is set to 0, the
loopback mode is disabled.
Only MCP55/CK804 chipsets accept the Maximum MTU upper to 9000 bytes.
Use default_mtu to set in /kernel/drv/nge.conf file, then reboot to
make it available. The default MTU value is 1500. For MCP55/CK804
chipsets, nge provides one option of minimal memory usage. Use minimal-
memory-usage = 1 in the /kernel/drv/nge.conf file, then reboot to make
it available. With this option, the nge driver can reduce memory usage
by two thirds. Note that setting minimal-memory-usage = 1 does not take
effect if MTU is increased above the default value. To avoid problems,
do not set the minimal-memory-usage and default_mtu options together in
the nge.conf file.
FILES
/dev/nge nge special character device.
/kernel/drv/nge 32-bit ELF Kernel module (x86).
/kernel/drv/amd64/nge 64-bit ELF Kernel module (x86).
/kernel/drv/nge.conf Driver configuration file.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
│Architecture x86 │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOdladm(1M), ndd(1M), attributes(5), gld(7D), streamio(7I), dlpi(7P)
Writing Device Drivers
STREAMS Programming Guide
Network Interfaces Programmer's Guide
SunOS 5.10 23 Apr 2010 nge(7D)
