bge(7D) bge(7D)
NAME
bge - SUNW,bge Gigabit Ethernet driver for Broadcom BCM57xx
SYNOPSIS
/dev/bge*
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 ) 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 ) 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 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 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 ndd(1M). The driver supports a number of parameters whose
names begin with adv_ (see below). Each of these parameters contains a boolean value that determines whether the device advertises that
mode of operation. The adv_pause_cap indicates whether half/full duplex pause is advertised to link partner. And the adv_asym_pause_cap can
be set to advertise to link partner that asymmetric pause is desired. In addition, bge uses adv_100T4_cap to advertise its 100T4 capabil-
ity. The adv_autoneg_cap parameter controls whether autonegotiation 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 listed below:
(highest priority/greatest throughput)
adv_1000fdx_cap 1000Mbps full duplex
adv_1000hdx_cap 1000Mpbs half duplex
adv_100fdx_cap 100Mpbs full duplex
adv_100hdx_cap 100Mpbs half duplex
adv_10fdx_cap 10Mpbs full duplex
adv_10hdx_cap 10Mpbs half duplex
(lowest priority/least throughput)
For example, to prevent the device 'bge2' from advertising gigabit capabilities, enter (as super-user):
# ndd -set /dev/bge2 adv_1000hdx_cap 0
# ndd -set /dev/bge2 adv_1000fdx_cap 0
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 ndd -get. In addition, the driver exports the current state, speed, duplex set-
ting, and working mode of the link via ndd parameters (these are read only and may not be changed). For example, to check link state of
device bge0:
# ndd -get /dev/bge0 link_status
1
# ndd -get /dev/bge0 link_speed
100
# ndd -get /dev/bge0 link_duplex
2
# ndd -get /dev/bge0 link_rx_pause
1
# ndd -get /dev/bge0 link_tx_pause
1
The output above indicates that the link is up and running at 100Mbps full-duplex with its rx/tx direction pause capability. In addition,
the driver exports its working mode by loop_mode. If it is set to 0, the loopback mode is disabled.
/dev/bge*
Character special device.
/kernel/drv/sparcv9/bge
SPARC bge driver binary.
/kernel/drv/amd64/bge
kernel module for 64-bit platform
/platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/bge
32-bit bge driver binary.
/platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/amd64/bge
64-bit bge driver binary.
See attributes(5) for a description of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Architecture |SPARC, |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
dladm(1M), attributes(5), streamio(7I), dlpi(7P)
Writing Device Drivers
STREAMS Programming Guide
Network Interfaces Programmer's Guide
23 Feb 2005 bge(7D)