FreeBSD Man Pages

fe(4)

SYNOPSIS

     device fe

     In /boot/device.hints:
     hint.fe.0.at="isa"
     hint.fe.0.port="0x300"
     hint.fe.0.flags="0x0"

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
     In the /boot/device.hints 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.

     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
     left unspecified by removing
	   hint.fe.0.port="..."
     from the file.  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
     by removing
	   hint.fe.0.irq="..."
     from the file.  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
	       information on DLCR6 settings.

HARDWARE

     Controllers and cards supported by the fe driver include:

     o	 Allied Telesis RE1000, RE1000Plus, ME1500 (110-pin)
     o	 CONTEC C-NET(98)P2, C-NET (9N)E (110-pin), C-NET(9N)C (ExtCard)
     o	 CONTEC C-NET(PC)C PCMCIA Ethernet
     o	 Eiger Labs EPX-10BT
     o	 Fujitsu FMV-J182, FMV-J182A
     o	 Fujitsu MB86960A, MB86965A
     o	 Fujitsu MBH10303, MBH10302 Ethernet PCMCIA
     o	 Fujitsu Towa LA501 Ethernet
     o	 HITACHI HT-4840-11
     o	 NextCom J Link NC5310
     o	 RATOC REX-5588, REX-9822, REX-4886, and REX-R280
     o	 RATOC REX-9880/9881/9882/9883
     o	 TDK LAC-98012, LAC-98013, LAC-98025, LAC-9N011 (110-pin)
     o	 TDK LAK-CD021, LAK-CD021A, LAK-CD021BX
     o	 Ungermann-Bass Access/PC N98C+(PC85152, PC85142), Access/NOTE
	 N98(PC86132) (110-pin)

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 undocu-
     mented options, all of whose names start with a fixed prefix FE_.	Con-
     sult 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.

	  o   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.

	  o   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.

	  o   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.

	  o   Setting FE_DEBUG=3 makes all debugging codes be included, and
	      sets the amount of logged messages to the maximum possible.
	      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 these dependencies.

     some difficulties with hardware probe.

     Automatic IRQ detection feature of fe works reliably for FMV-180 series.
     It is recommended to explicitly specify 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
     /boot/device.hints does not match one stored in EEPROM.  Then, it will
     use the value specified in the file.  (This behavior has been changed
     from the previous 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 not specified in /boot/device.hints.  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 ALSO

     netstat(1), ed(4), netintro(4), ng_ether(4), ifconfig(8), pccardd(8)

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 support is included in the driver, it has never been
     tested and it is expected to have a lot of bugs.

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.


     THIS DOCUMENT AND THE ASSOCIATED SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND
     THE CONTRIBUTOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUD-
     ING, 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, PROCUREMENT 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 NEG-
     LIGENCE 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.

HISTORY

     The fe driver appeared in FreeBSD 2.0.5.

FreeBSD 5.4			 March 3, 1996			   FreeBSD 5.4

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