nxge(7D)							      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, loadable, clonable, GLD-based STREAMS driver supporting the Data Link Provider Inter-
       face, 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 IEEE 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 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 device to advertise its capabilities and discover those of its peer (link partner). The highest common denomi-
       nator  supported by both link partners is automatically selected, yielding the greatest available throughput while requiring no manual con-
       figuration. The nxge 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/nxge, is used to access all Sun Neptune NIU devices installed within the system.

       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.

       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). The driver pads to the  mandatory 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 broadcast address (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF).

		  Due to the nature of link address definition for IPoIB, the DL_SET_PHYS_ADDR_REQ DLPI primitive is not supported.

		  In the transmit case for streams that have been put in raw mode via the DLIOCRAW ioctl, the dlpi application 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 DL_ATTACHED state, you must send a DL_BIND_REQ 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. 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  both  link  partners.  Because  the nxge device supports all modes, the effect is to select the highest
       throughput mode supported 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 opera-
       tion. The adv_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 renego-
       tiate 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

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      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 Guide

       IEEE 802.3ae Specification -- 2002

SunOS 5.11							    12 Apr 2008 							  nxge(7D)