pcn(7D) 							      Devices								   pcn(7D)

NAME

       pcn - AMD PCnet Ethernet controller device driver

SYNOPSIS

       /dev/pcn

DESCRIPTION

       The   pcn  Ethernet  driver  is a multi-threaded,  loadable, clonable driver for the  AMD PCnet family of Ethernet controllers that use the
       Generic	LAN Driver (GLD) facility to implement the required  STREAMS and Data Link Provider (see  dlpi(7P)) interfaces.

       This driver supports a number of integrated motherboards and  add-in adapters based on the AMD PCnet-ISA,  PCnet-PCI,  and   PCnet-32  con-
       troller chips. The  pcn driver functions include controller initialization, frame  transmit and receive, functional addresses,  promiscuous
       and multicast support, and error  recovery and reporting.

APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE

       The cloning character-special device, /dev/pcn, is used to access all PCnet devices installed in the system.

pcn and DLPI
       The pcn driver uses the Solaris GLD module  which handles all the STREAMS and DLPI specific functions of the driver. It is a style  2  DLPI
       driver  and  therefore  supports only the connectionless mode of data transfer. Thus, a DLPI user should issue a DL_ATTACH_REQ primitive to
       select the device to be used. Valid DLPI primitives are defined in <sys/dlpi.h>. Refer to dlpi(7P) for more information.

       The device is initialized on the first attach and de-initialized (stopped) on the last detach.

       The values returned by the driver in the DL_INFO_ACK primitive in response to a DL_INFO_REQ from the user are:

	 o  Maximum SDU is 1500 (ETHERMTU - defined in <sys/ethernet.h>).

	 o  Minimum SDU is 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  Service mode is DL_CLDLS.

	 o  No optional quality of service (QOS) support is included at present, accordingly, the QOS fields are 0.

	 o  Provider style is DL_STYLE2.

	 o  Version is DL_VERSION_2.

	 o  Broadcast address value is the Ethernet/IEEE broadcast address (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF).

       Once in the DL_ATTACHED state, the user must send a DL_BIND_REQ to associate a particular Service Access Point (SAP) with the stream.

   Known Problems and Limitations
	 o  Occasional	data corruption has occurred when pcn and pcscsi drivers in HP Vectra XU 5/90 and Compaq Deskpro XL systems are used under
	    high network and  SCSI loads. These drivers do not perform well in a production server. A possible workaround is to disable  the   pcn
	    device with the system BIOS and use a separate add-in network interface.

	 o  The Solaris pcn driver does not support IRQ 4.

FILES

       /dev/pcn 	       Character special device

       /kernel/drv/pcn.conf    Configuration file

ATTRIBUTES

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

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

SEE ALSO

       attributes(5), standards(5), dlpi(7P), streamio(7I)

       Writing Device Drivers

       STREAMS Programming Guide

SunOS 5.10							    20 Oct 2000 							   pcn(7D)