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 Ethernetfiber 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 IEEE 802.3ae 10Gb/s
full duplex operation using XFP-based 10GigE optics (NIU,
dual 10 Gigabit fiber XFP adapter). The Sun Ethernethardware supports the IEEE 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 itspeer (link partner). The highest common denominator sup-
ported by both link partners is automatically selected, yielding the greatest available throughput while requiringno 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. APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACEThe 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.SunOS 5.11 Last change: 12 Apr 2008 1
Devices nxge(7D)
You must send an explicit DL_ATTACH_REQ message to associate
the opened stream with a particular device (PPA). The PPA IDis interpreted as an unsigned integer data type and indi-
cates the corresponding device instance (unit) number. Thedriver returns an error (DL_ERROR_ACK) if the PPA field
value does not correspond to a valid device instance number for the system. The device is initialized on first attachand de-initialized (stopped) at last detach.
The values returned by the driver in the DL_INFO_ACK primi-
tive in response to a DL_INFO_REQ are:
o Maximum SDU (default 1500). o Minimum SDU (default 0). The driver pads to themandatory 60-octet minimum packet size.
o DLSAP address length is 8.o MAC type is DL_ETHER.
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/IEEE broad-
cast address (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF). Due to the nature of link address definition forIPoIB, the DL_SET_PHYS_ADDR_REQ DLPI primitive is
not supported. In the transmit case for streams that have been putin raw mode via the DLIOCRAW ioctl, the dlpi appli-
cation must prepend the 20 byte IPoIB destinationaddress to the data it wants to transmit over-the-
wire. In the receive case, applications receive theIP/ARP datagram along with the IETF defined 4 byte header.
Once in the DL_ATTACHED state, you must send a DL_BIND_REQ
to associate a particular Service Access Point (SAP) with the stream. CONFIGURATIONFor 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 IEEE802.3 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 bothlink 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 ofparameters 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. Theadv_autoneg_cap parameter controls whether auto-negotiation
is performed. 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 shown below: (highest priority/greatest throughput)en_1000fdx_cap 1000Mbps full duplex
en_100fdx_cap 100Mpbs full duplex
en_10fdx_cap 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.
ATTRIBUTES
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Devices nxge(7D)
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE 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 GuideIEEE 802.3ae Specification - 2002
SunOS 5.11 Last change: 12 Apr 2008 4