Devices nxge(7D)
NAME
nxge - Sun 10/1 Gigabit Ethernet network driver
SYNOPSIS
/dev/nxge*
DESCRIPTION
The nxge Gigabit Ethernet driver is a multi-threaded, load-
able, clonable, GLD-based STREAMS driver supporting the Data
Link Provider Interface, dlpi(7P), on Sun Gigabit Ethernet
hardware (NIU, Sun x8, Express Dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet
fiber XFP low profile adapter and the 10/100/1000BASE-T x8
Express low profile adapter).
The nxge driver functions include chip initialization, frame
transmit and receive, flow classification, multicast and
promiscuous support, and error recovery and reporting.
The nxge device provides fully-compliant IE 802.3ae 10Gb/s
full duplex operation using XFP-based 10GigE optics (NIU,
dual 10 Gigabit fiber XFP adapter). The Sun Ethernet
hardware supports the IE 802.3x frame-based flow control
capabilities.
For the 10/100/1000BASE-T adapter, the nxge driver and
hardware support auto-negotiation, a protocol specified by
the 1000 Base-T standard. Auto-negotiation allows each dev-
ice to advertise its capabilities and discover those of its
peer (link partner). The highest common denominator sup-
ported by both link partners is automatically selected,
yielding the greatest available throughput while requiring
no manual configuration. The nxge driver also allows you to
configure the advertised capabilities to less than the max-
imum (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.
APLICATION PROGRAMING INTERFACE
The cloning character-special device, /dev/nxge, is used to
access all Sun Neptune NIU devices installed within the sys-
tem.
The nxge driver is managed by the dladm(1M) command line
utility, which allows VLANs to be defined on top of nxge
instances and for nxge instances to be aggregated. See
dladm(1M) for more details.
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Devices nxge(7D)
You must send an explicit DLATACHREQ message to associate
the opened stream with a particular device (PA). The PA ID
is interpreted as an unsigned integer data type and indi-
cates the corresponding device instance (unit) number. The
driver returns an error (DLERORACK) if the PA field
value does not correspond to a valid device instance number
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 DLINFOACK primi-
tive in response to a DLINFOREQ are:
o Maximum SDU (default 1500).
o Minimum SDU (default 0). The driver pads to the
mandatory 60-octet minimum packet size.
o DLSAP address length is 8.
o MAC type is DLETHER.
o SAP length value is -2, meaning the physical
address component is followed immediately by a 2-
byte SAP component within the DLSAP address.
o Broadcast address value is the Ethernet/IE broad-
cast address (F:F:F:F:F:F).
Due to the nature of link address definition for
IPoIB, the DLSETPHYSADREQ DLPI primitive is
not supported.
In the transmit case for streams that have been put
in raw mode via the DLIOCRAW ioctl, the dlpi appli-
cation must prepend the 20 byte IPoIB destination
address to the data it wants to transmit over-the-
wire. In the receive case, applications receive the
IP/ARP datagram along with the IETF defined 4 byte
header.
Once in the DLATACHED state, you must send a DLBINDREQ
to associate a particular Service Access Point (SAP) with
the stream.
CONFIGURATION
For the 10/100/1000BASE-T adapter, the nxge driver performs
auto-negotiation to select the link speed and mode. Link
speed and mode may be 10000 Mbps full-duplex (10 Gigabit
adapter), 1000 Mbps full-duplex, 100 Mbps full-duplex, or 10
Mbps full-duplex, depending on the hardware adapter type.
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Devices nxge(7D)
See the IE802.3 standard for more information.
The auto-negotiation protocol automatically selects the 1000
Mbps, 100 Mbps, or 10 Mbps operation modes (full-duplex
only) as the highest common denominator supported by both
link partners. Because the nxge device supports all modes,
the effect is to select the highest throughput mode sup-
ported by the other device.
You can also set the capabilities advertised by the nxge
device using dladm(1M). The driver supports a number of
parameters whose names begin with en (see below). Each of
these parameters contains a boolean value that determines if
the device advertises that mode of operation. The
advautonegcap parameter controls whether auto-negotiation
is performed. If advautonegcap is set to 0, the driver
forces the mode of operation selected by the first non-zero
parameter in priority order as shown below:
(highest priority/greatest throughput)
en1000fdxcap 1000Mbps full duplex
en100fdxcap 100Mpbs full duplex
en10fdxcap 10Mpbs full duplex
(lowest priority/least throughput)
All capabilities default to enabled. Note that changing any
capability parameter causes the link to go down while the
link partners renegotiate the link speed/duplex using the
newly changed capabilities.
FILES
/dev/nxge* Special character device.
/kernel/drv/nxge 32-bit device driver (x86).
/kernel/drv/sparcv9/nxge 64-bit device driver (SPARC).
/kernel/drv/amd64/nxge 64-bit device driver (x86).
/kernel/drv/nxge.conf Configuration file.
ATRIBUTES
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Devices nxge(7D)
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
ATRIBUTE TYPE ATRIBUTE VALUE
Architecture SPARC, x86
SEE ALSO
dladm(1M), netstat(1M), attributes(5), streamio(7I),
dlpi(7P), driver.conf(4)
Writing Device Drivers
STREAMS Programming Guide
Network Interfaces Programmer's Guide
IE 802.3ae Specification - 2002
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