elxl(7D) Devices elxl(7D)NAMEelxl - 3Com Ethernet device driver
SYNOPSIS
/kernel/drv/elxl
DESCRIPTION
The elxl driver currently supports the following network cards: Ether‐
Link XL (3C900-TPO, 3C900-COMBO, 3C900B-TPO, 3C900B-COMBO, and 3C900B-
TPC), EtherLink XL 10/100 (3C905-TX Fast, 3C905-T4 Fast, 3C905B-TX
Fast, 3C905B-T4 Fast, and 3C905C-TX-M Fast), and EtherLink Server
10/100 (3C980-TX Fast and 3C980C-TXM).
The elxl Ethernet driver is a multi-threaded, loadable, clonable,
STREAMS hardware driver supporting the connectionless Data Link
Provider Interface, dlpi(7P). Multiple EtherLink XL controllers
installed within the system are supported by the driver. The elxl
driver provides basic support for the EtherLink hardware. Functions
include chip initialization, frame transmit and receive, multicast and
promiscuous mode support, and error recovery and reporting.
The cloning, character-special device /dev/elxl is used to access all
EtherLink devices installed within the system.
The elxl driver is dependent on /kernel/misc/gld, a loadable kernel
module that provides the elxl driver with the DLPI and STREAMS func‐
tionality required of a LAN driver. See gld(7D) for more details on the
primatives supported by the driver.
The values returned by the driver in the DL_INFO_ACK primitive in
response to the DL_INFO_REQ from the user are as follows:
· Maximum SDU is 1500 (ETHERMTU).
· Minimum SDU is 0. The driver will pad to the mandatory 60-octet
minimum packet size.
· The dlsap address length is 8.
· MAC type is DL_ETHER.
· The sap length value is -2, meaning the physical address component
is followed immediately by a 2-byte sap component within the DLSAP
address.
· The broadcast address value is Ethernet/IEEE broadcast address
(FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF).
PRECONFIGURE
Supported Settings
· Media Type: Auto Select
Known Problems and Limitations
· 3C905B cards in a Compaq ProLiant 6500 can fail to generate inter‐
rupts. There is no known workaround for this problem. However,
because some slots appear to be more prone to the problem than
others, try correcting the problem by moving the card to another
PCI slot. If that fails, try rebooting the machine a number of
times to free the card from the wedged state.
· Early versions of the 3Com 3C905C-TX-M adapter firmware do not
support PXE network boot on Solaris systems. If you are using a
version earlier than 4.11, upgrade the firmware. The PXE version
is indicated by the Managed Boot Agent version number. This number
is not normally displayed during boot, but is shown on the PXE
configuration screen.
CONFIGURATION
The /kernel/drv/elxl.conf file supports the following tunable proper‐
ties that you can set in the elxl.conf file:
tx_start_thresh
Minimum number of bytes in transmit FIFO (if lower
then the packet size), before NIC starts the frame transfer. The
higher the value, the less chance for a transmission underrun error
that triggers a transmission retry. Default value is 250, maximum
value is 1514.
recv-descriptors
The number of frames the device may receive from the network with‐
out system attention before the device begins dropping the frames.
Valid range is 1 to 256. Default is 24.
xmit-descriptors
The number of outgoing frames that the system can queue
on the driver queue before blocking a send request. Valid range is
1 to 512. Default is 128.
min-recv-data-buffers
Minimal number of allocated receive data buffers.
Must be equal or greater than effective number of recv-descriptors.
Default (max value) is 128.
max-recv-data-buffers
Maximum number of allocated receive data buffers.
Must be equal or greater then min-recv-data-buffers number.
inter-frame-space
Amount of time in addition to the standard inter-frame
time used by IEEE 802.3 deference rule. Expressed in 32 multiples
of bit time. Used only in half-duplex context. This small IFS is to
make the defer-after-transmit time slightly longer than the defer-
after-receive time. This greatly reduces the high collision rate
seen with heavy TCP traffic (almost exactly one collision per ACK),
giving slightly improved overall throughput in half-duplex mode.
Default IFS is 32. This property is ignored in full-duplex mode.
full-duplex
When set, it forces full-duplex mode for NIC capable of working in
full-duplex mode. If this property is set, the auto-negotiation
feature (if supported) of the network controller is disabled. For
full duplex operation use full-duplex=1. For half duplex use full-
duplex=0. Half-duplex operation provides better results on older
10-Mbit networks.
speed
Link speed in Mbps. Valid values are 10 and 100. If this property
is set, the auto-negotiation feature of the network controller (if
supported) is disabled.
FILES
/dev/elxl Special character device
/kernel/drv/elxl.conf Configuration file for elxl driver
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
│Architecture │x86 │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOattributes(5), gld(7D), streamio(7I), dlpi(7P).
SunOS 5.10 16 October 2003 elxl(7D)