1nxge(7D) Devices nxge(7D)
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6 nxge - Sun 10/1 Gigabit Ethernet network driver
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9 /dev/nxge*
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13 The nxge Gigabit Ethernet driver is a multi-threaded, loadable, clon‐
14 able, GLD-based STREAMS driver supporting the Data Link Provider Inter‐
15 face, dlpi(7P), on Sun Gigabit Ethernet hardware (NIU, Sun x8, Express
16 Dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet fiber XFP low profile adapter and the
17 10/100/1000BASE-T x8 Express low profile adapter).
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20 The nxge driver functions include chip initialization, frame transmit
21 and receive, flow classification, multicast and promiscuous support,
22 and error recovery and reporting.
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25 The nxge device provides fully-compliant IEEE 802.3ae 10Gb/s full
26 duplex operation using XFP-based 10GigE optics (NIU, dual 10 Gigabit
27 fiber XFP adapter). The Sun Ethernet hardware supports the IEEE 802.3x
28 frame-based flow control capabilities.
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31 For the 10/100/1000BASE-T adapter, the nxge driver and hardware support
32 auto-negotiation, a protocol specified by the 1000 Base-T standard.
33 Auto-negotiation allows each device to advertise its capabilities and
34 discover those of its peer (link partner). The highest common denomina‐
35 tor supported by both link partners is automatically selected, yielding
36 the greatest available throughput while requiring no manual configura‐
37 tion. The nxge driver also allows you to configure the advertised capa‐
38 bilities to less than the maximum (where the full speed of the inter‐
39 face is not required) or to force a specific mode of operation, irre‐
40 spective of the link partner's advertised capabilities.
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43 The cloning character-special device, /dev/nxge, is used to access all
44 Sun Neptune NIU devices installed within the system.
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47 The nxge driver is managed by the dladm(1M) command line utility, which
48 allows VLANs to be defined on top of nxge instances and for nxge
49 instances to be aggregated. See dladm(1M) for more details.
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52 You must send an explicit DL_ATTACH_REQ message to associate the opened
53 stream with a particular device (PPA). The PPA ID is interpreted as an
54 unsigned integer data type and indicates the corresponding device
55 instance (unit) number. The driver returns an error (DL_ERROR_ACK) if
56 the PPA field value does not correspond to a valid device instance num‐
57 ber for the system. The device is initialized on first attach and de-
58 initialized (stopped) at last detach.
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61 The values returned by the driver in the DL_INFO_ACK primitive in
62 response to a DL_INFO_REQ are:
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64 o Maximum SDU (default 1500).
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66 o Minimum SDU (default 0). The driver pads to the mandatory
67 60-octet minimum packet size.
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69 o DLSAP address length is 8.
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71 o MAC type is DL_ETHER.
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73 o SAP length value is -2, meaning the physical address compo‐
74 nent is followed immediately by a 2-byte SAP component
75 within the DLSAP address.
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77 o Broadcast address value is the Ethernet/IEEE broadcast
78 address (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF).
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80 Due to the nature of link address definition for IPoIB, the
81 DL_SET_PHYS_ADDR_REQ DLPI primitive is not supported.
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83 In the transmit case for streams that have been put in raw
84 mode via the DLIOCRAW ioctl, the dlpi application must
85 prepend the 20 byte IPoIB destination address to the data it
86 wants to transmit over-the-wire. In the receive case, appli‐
87 cations receive the IP/ARP datagram along with the IETF
88 defined 4 byte header.
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91 Once in the DL_ATTACHED state, you must send a DL_BIND_REQ to associate
92 a particular Service Access Point (SAP) with the stream.
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95 For the 10/100/1000BASE-T adapter, the nxge driver performs auto-nego‐
96 tiation to select the link speed and mode. Link speed and mode may be
97 10000 Mbps full-duplex (10 Gigabit adapter), 1000 Mbps full-duplex, 100
98 Mbps full-duplex, or 10 Mbps full-duplex, depending on the hardware
99 adapter type. See the IEEE802.3 standard for more information.
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102 The auto-negotiation protocol automatically selects the 1000 Mbps, 100
103 Mbps, or 10 Mbps operation modes (full-duplex only) as the highest com‐
104 mon denominator supported by both link partners. Because the nxge
105 device supports all modes, the effect is to select the highest through‐
106 put mode supported by the other device.
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109 You can also set the capabilities advertised by the nxge device using
110 dladm(1M). The driver supports a number of parameters whose names begin
111 with en_ (see below). Each of these parameters contains a boolean value
112 that determines if the device advertises that mode of operation. The
113 adv_autoneg_cap parameter controls whether auto-negotiation is per‐
114 formed. If adv_autoneg_cap is set to 0, the driver forces the mode of
115 operation selected by the first non-zero parameter in priority order
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118 (highest priority/greatest throughput)
119 en_1000fdx_cap 1000Mbps full duplex
120 en_100fdx_cap 100Mpbs full duplex
121 en_10fdx_cap 10Mpbs full duplex
122 (lowest priority/least throughput)
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126 All capabilities default to enabled. Note that changing any capability
127 parameter causes the link to go down while the link partners renegoti‐
128 ate the link speed/duplex using the newly changed capabilities.
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131 /dev/nxge* Special character device.
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134 /kernel/drv/nxge 32-bit device driver (x86).
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137 /kernel/drv/sparcv9/nxge 64-bit device driver (SPARC).
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140 /kernel/drv/amd64/nxge 64-bit device driver (x86).
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143 /kernel/drv/nxge.conf Configuration file.
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147 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
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152 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
153 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
154 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
155 │Architecture │SPARC, x86 │
156 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
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159 dladm(1M), netstat(1M), attributes(5), streamio(7I), dlpi(7P),
160 driver.conf(4)
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163 Writing Device Drivers
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166 STREAMS Programming Guide
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169 Network Interfaces Programmer's Guide
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172 IEEE 802.3ae Specification — 2002
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176SunOS 5.11 12 Apr 2008 nxge(7D)