bge(7D) 							      Devices								   bge(7D)

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 Inter-
       face, dlpi(7P), 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 recov-
       ery 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(1M) command line utility, which allows VLANs to be defined on top of bge  instances and for bge
       instances to be aggregated. See dladm(1M) 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  follow-
       ing, (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(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 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	 1000Mpbs half duplex
		   en_100fdx_cap	 100Mpbs full duplex
		   en_100hdx_cap	 100Mpbs half duplex
		   en_10fdx_cap 	 10Mpbs full duplex
		   en_10hdx_cap 	 10Mpbs 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 renego-
       tiate 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(1M)  or  in  driver.conf(4) 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

       See attributes(5) for a description of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Architecture		     |SPARC, x86		   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       dladm(1M), driver.conf(4), attributes(5), streamio(7I), dlpi(7P)

       Writing Device Drivers

       STREAMS Programming Guide

       Network Interfaces Programmer's Guide

SunOS 5.11							    9 Apr 2008								   bge(7D)