FE(4) BSD/i386 Kernel Interfaces Manual FE(4)NAMEfe — Fujitsu MB86960A/MB86965A based Ethernet adapters
SYNOPSIS
device fe0 at isa? port 0x300 irq ?
DESCRIPTION
The fe is a network device driver for Ethernet adapters based on Fujitsu
MB86960A, MB86965A, or other compatible chips.
The driver provides automatic I/O port address configuration and auto‐
matic IRQ configuration, when used with suitable adapter hardware.
The driver works with program I/O data transfer technique. It gives a
fair performance. Shared memory is never used, even if the adapter has
one.
It currently works with Fujitsu FMV-180 series for ISA, Allied-Telesis
AT1700 series and RE2000 series for ISA, and Fujitsu MBH10302 PC card.
Parameters
On the kernel configuration file, two parameters, port and irq, must be
specified to reflect adapter hardware settings. Another parameter flags
can be specified to provide additional configuration as an option. Other
parameters of the device statement must appear as described on the synop‐
sis.
The port parameter specifies a base I/O port address of the adapter. It
must match with the hardware setting of the adapter. The port may be a
left unspecified as “?”. In that case, the driver tries to detect the
hardware setting of the I/O address automatically. This feature may not
work with some adapter hardware.
The irq parameter specifies an IRQ number used by the adapter. It must
match the hardware setting of the adapter. Irq may be left unspecified
as “?”; in that case, the driver tries to detect the hardware setting of
the IRQ automatically. This feature may not work on some adapters.
The flags is a numeric value which consists of a combination of various
device settings. The following flags are defined in the current version.
To specify two or more settings for a device, use a numeric sum of each
flag value. Flag bits not specified below are reserved and must be set
to 0. Actually, each bit is either just ignored by the driver, or tested
and used to control undocumented features of the driver. Consult the
source program for undocumented features.
0x007F These flag bits are used to initialize DLCR6 register of
MB86960A/MB86965A chip, when the 0x0080 bit of the flags is
set. See below for more about DLCR6 override feature. The
0x007F flag bits must be 0 unless the 0x0080 bit is set, to
maintain the compatibility with future versions of the driver.
0x0080 This flag overrides the default setting to the DLCR6 register
of MB86960A/MB86965A chip by a user supplied value, which is
taken from the lower 7 bits of the flag value. This is a trou‐
bleshooting flag and should not be used without understanding
of the adapter hardware. Consult the Fujitsu manual for more
information on DLCR6 settings.
OPTIONS
The fe driver has some private options, which can be specified with an
“option” statement in the kernel configuration file. The following lists
the private options. The driver also accepts some other undocumented
options, all of whose names start with a fixed prefix FE_. Consult the
source program for undocumented options.
FE_DEBUG=level
This option takes a numeric value level which controls the debugging
level for the device and/or the driver. Setting the FE_DEBUG option
to a value which is not listed here may cause undocumented behavior.
The default setting of this option is 1.
· Setting FE_DEBUG=0 makes most of debugging codes, including san‐
ity check, be excluded from the object code of the driver. It
generates fastest and smallest object code. Some emergency mes‐
sages are logged even under this setting, though.
· Setting FE_DEBUG=1 makes minimum debugging codes be included,
setting the amount of logged messages minimum. Only fatal error
messages are logged under this setting.
· Setting FE_DEBUG=2 makes standard debugging codes be included,
setting the amount of logged messages middle. Messages on lair
events and/or questionable conditions are logged under this set‐
ting.
· Setting FE_DEBUG=3 makes all debugging codes be included, and
set the amount of legged messages maximum. Redundant messages
such as those reporting usual actions or dumping register values
are logged under this setting.
FEATURES SPECIFIC TO HARDWARE MODELS
The fe driver has some features and limitations which depend on adapter
hardware models. The following is a summary of such dependency.
Fujitsu FMV-180 series adapters
Both automatic IRQ detection and automatic I/O port address detection is
available with these adapters.
Automatic I/O port address detection feature of fe works mostly fine for
FMV-180 series. It works even if there are two or more FMV-180s in a
system. However, some combination of other adapters may confuse the
driver. It is recommended not to use port ? when you experience some
difficulties with hardware probe.
Automatic IRQ detection feature of fe works reliably for FMV-180 series.
It is recommended to use irq ? always for FMV-180. The hardware setting
of IRQ is read from the configuration EEPROM on the adapter, even when
the kernel config file specifies an IRQ value. The driver will generate
a warning message, if the IRQ setting specified in the kernel config file
does not match one stored in EEPROM. Then, it will use the value speci‐
fied in the config file. (This behavior has been changed from the previ‐
ous releases.)
Allied-Telesis AT1700 series and RE2000 series adapters
Automatic I/O port address detection is available with Allied-Telesis
AT1700 series and RE2000 series, while it is less reliable than FMV-180
series. Using the feature with Allied-Telesis adapters is not recom‐
mended.
Automatic IRQ detection is also available with some limitation. The fe
driver tries to get IRQ setting from the configuration EEPROM on the
board, if “irq ?” is specified in the configuration file. Unfortunately,
AT1700 series and RE2000 series seems to have two types of models; One
type allows IRQ selection from 3/4/5/9, while the other from 10/11/12/15.
Identification of the models are not well known. Hence, automatic IRQ
detection with Allied-Telesis adapters may not be reliable. Specify an
exact IRQ number if any troubles are encountered.
Differences between AT1700 series and RE2000 series or minor models in
those series are not recognized.
Fujitsu MBH10302 PC card
The fe driver supports Fujitsu MBH10302 and compatible PC cards. It
requires the PC card (PCMCIA) support package.
SEE ALSOnetstat(1), ed(4), ifmedia(4), netintro(4), ng_ether(4), ifconfig(8)HISTORY
The fe driver appeared in FreeBSD 2.0.5.
AUTHORS, COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER
The fe driver was originally written and contributed by M. Sekiguchi
⟨seki@sysrap.cs.fujitsu.co.jp⟩, following the ed driver written by David
Greenman. PC card support in fe is written by Hidetoshi Kimura
⟨h-kimura@tokyo.se.fujitsu.co.jp⟩. This manual page was written by M.
Sekiguchi.
All Rights Reserved, Copyright (C) Fujitsu Limited 1995
This document and the associated software may be used, modified, copied,
distributed, and sold, in both source and binary form provided that the
above copyright, these terms and the following disclaimer are retained.
The name of the author and/or the contributor may not be used to endorse
or promote products derived from this document and the associated soft‐
ware without specific prior written permission.
THIS DOCUMENT AND THE ASSOCIATED SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND
THE CONTRIBUTOR “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR
THE CONTRIBUTOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PRO‐
CUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS;
OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR
OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENT AND THE
ASSOCIATED SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
BUGS
Following are major known bugs:
Statistics on the number of collisions maintained by the fe driver is not
accurate; the -i option of netstat(1) shows slightly less value than true
number of collisions.
More mbuf clusters are used than expected. The packet receive routine
has an intended violation against the mbuf cluster allocation policy.
The unnecessarily allocated clusters are freed within short lifetime, and
it will not affect long term kernel memory usage.
Although XNS and IPX supports are included in the driver, they are never
be tested and must have a lot of bugs.
BSD March 3, 1996 BSD
