Tribblix: manual page: bge.4d

BGE(4D) Devices BGE(4D)

NAME

bge - SUNW,bge Gigabit Ethernet driver for Broadcom BCM57xx

SYNOPSIS

/dev/bge*

DESCRIPTION

The bge Gigabit Ethernet driver is a multi-threaded, loadable,
clonable, GLD-based STREAMS driver supporting the Data Link Provider
Interface, dlpi(4P), on Broadcom BCM57xx
(BCM5700/5701/5703/5704/5705/5705M/5714/5721/5751/5751M/5782/5788 on
x86) Gigabit Ethernet controllers fitted to the system motherboard.
With the exception of BCM5700/BCM5701/BCM5704S, these devices
incorporate both MAC and PHY functions and provide three-speed
(copper) Ethernet operation on the RJ-45 connectors.
(BCM5700/BCM5701/BCM5704S do not have a PHY integrated into the MAC
chipset.)

The bge driver functions include controller initialization, frame
transmit and receive, promiscuous and multicast support, and error
recovery and reporting.

The bge driver and hardware support auto-negotiation, a protocol
specified 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
partners is automatically selected, yielding the greatest available
throughput, while requiring no manual configuration. The bge 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/bge, is used to access all
BCM57xx devices ( (BCM5700/5701/5703/5704,
5705/5714/5721/5751/5751M/5782 on x86) fitted to the system
motherboard.

The bge driver is managed by the dladm(8) command line utility, which
allows VLANs to be defined on top of bge instances and for bge
instances to be aggregated. See dladm(8) for more details.

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 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 DL_INFO_ACK primitive in
response to a DL_INFO_REQ are:

o Maximum SDU (default 1500).

o Minimum SDU (default 0).

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 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 bge 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):

o 1000 Mbps, full-duplex

o 1000 Mbps, half-duplex

o 100 Mbps, full-duplex

o 100 Mbps, half-duplex

o 10 Mbps, full-duplex

o 10 Mbps, half-duplex

The auto-negotiation protocol automatically selects:

o Speed (1000 Mbps, 100 Mbps, or 10 Mbps)

o Operation mode (full-duplex or half-duplex)

as the highest common denominator supported by both link partners.
Because the bge 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 bge
device using dladm(8). The driver supports a number of parameters
whose names begin with en_ (see below). Each of these parameters
contains a boolean value that determines whether the device
advertises that mode of operation. If en_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)
en_1000fdx_cap 1000Mbps full duplex
en_1000hdx_cap 1000Mbps half duplex
en_100fdx_cap 100Mbps full duplex
en_100hdx_cap 100Mbps half duplex
en_10fdx_cap 10Mbps full duplex
en_10hdx_cap 10Mbps half duplex
(lowest priority/least throughput)

For example, to prevent the device 'bge2' from advertising gigabit
capabilities, enter (as super-user):

# dladm set-linkprop -p enable_1000hdx_cap=0 bge2
# dladm set-linkprop -p enable_1000fdx_cap=0 bge2

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.

The current settings of the parameters may be found using dladm show-
ether. In addition, the driver exports the current state, speed,
duplex setting, and working mode of the link via kstat parameters
(these are read only and may not be changed). For example, to check
link state of device bge0:

# dladm show-ether -x bge0
LINK PTYPE STATE AUTO SPEED-DUPLEX PAUSE
bge0 current up yes 1G-f bi
-- capable -- yes 1G-fh,100M-fh,10M-fh bi
-- adv -- yes 1G-fh bi
-- peeradv -- yes 1G-f bi

The output above indicates that the link is up and running at 1Gbps
full-duplex with its rx/tx direction pause capability.

To extract link state information for the same link using kstat:

# kstat bge:0:mac:link_state
module: bge instance: 0
name: mac class: net
link_state

The default MTU is 1500. To enable Jumbo Frames support, you can
configure the bge driver by defining the default_mtu property via
dladm(8) or in driver.conf(5) to greater than 1500 bytes (for
example: default_mtu=9000). Note that the largest jumbo size
supported by bge is 9000 bytes. Additionally, not all bge-derived
devices currently support Jumbo Frames. The following devices
support Jumbo Frames up to 9KB: BCM5700, 5701, 5702, 5703C, 5703S,
5704C, 5704S, 5714C, 5714S, 5715C and 5715S. Other devices currently
do not support Jumbo Frames.

FILES

/kernel/drv/bge*
32-bit ELF kernel module. (x86)

/kernel/drv/amd64/bge
64-bit ELF kernel module (x86).

/kernel/drv/sparcv9/bge
64-bit ELF kernel module (SPARC).

ATTRIBUTES