Ubuntu Manpage: re — RealTek 8139C+/8169/816xS/811xS/8168/810xE/8111 PCI/PCIe Ethernet adapter driver

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NAME

     re — RealTek 8139C+/8169/816xS/811xS/8168/810xE/8111 PCI/PCIe Ethernet adapter driver

SYNOPSIS

     To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel
     configuration file:

           device miibus
           device re

     Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in
     loader.conf(5):

           if_re_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

The re driver provides support for various NICs based on the RealTek RTL8139C+, RTL8169,
RTL816xS, RTL811xS, RTL8168, RTL810xE and RTL8111 PCI and PCIe Ethernet controllers.

NICs based on the 8139C+ and 810xE are capable of 10 and 100Mbps speeds over CAT5 cable.
NICs based on the 8169, 816xS, 811xS, 8168 and 8111 are capable of 10, 100 and 1000Mbps
operation.

All NICs supported by the re driver have TCP/IP checksum offload and hardware VLAN
tagging/insertion features, and use a descriptor-based DMA mechanism. They are also capable
of TCP large send (TCP segmentation offload).

The 8139C+ is a single-chip solution combining both a 10/100 MAC and PHY. The 8169 is a
10/100/1000 MAC only, requiring a GMII or TBI external PHY. The 816xS, 811xS, 8168 and 8111
are single-chip devices containing both a 10/100/1000 MAC and 10/100/1000 copper PHY.
Standalone 10/100/1000 cards are available in both 32-bit PCI and 64-bit PCI models. The
8110S is designed for embedded LAN-on-motherboard applications.

The 8169, 8169S and 8110S also support jumbo frames, which can be configured via the
interface MTU setting. The MTU is limited to 7422, since the chip cannot transmit larger
frames. Selecting an MTU larger than 1500 bytes with the ifconfig(8) utility configures the
adapter to receive and transmit jumbo frames.

The re driver supports the following media types:

autoselect Enable autoselection of the media type and options. The user can manually
override the autoselected mode by adding media options to rc.conf(5).

10baseT/UTP Set 10Mbps operation. The ifconfig(8) mediaopt option can also be used to
select either full-duplex or half-duplex modes.

100baseTX Set 100Mbps (Fast Ethernet) operation. The ifconfig(8) mediaopt option can
also be used to select either full-duplex or half-duplex modes.

1000baseTX Set 1000baseTX operation over twisted pair. The RealTek gigE chips support
1000Mbps in full-duplex mode only.

The re driver supports the following media options:

full-duplex Force full duplex operation.

half-duplex Force half duplex operation.

For more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8).

HARDWARE

     The re driver supports RealTek RTL8139C+, RTL8169, RTL816xS, RTL811xS, RTL8168, RTL810xE and
     RTL8111 based Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet adapters including:

     •   Alloy Computer Products EtherGOLD 1439E 10/100 (8139C+)
     •   Compaq Evo N1015v Integrated Ethernet (8139C+)
     •   Corega CG-LAPCIGT Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
     •   D-Link DGE-528(T) Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
     •   Gigabyte 7N400 Pro2 Integrated Gigabit Ethernet (8110S)
     •   LevelOne GNC-0105T (8169S)
     •   LinkSys EG1032 (32-bit PCI)
     •   PLANEX COMMUNICATIONS Inc. GN-1200TC (8169S)
     •   TP-Link TG-3468 v2 Gigabit Ethernet (8168)
     •   USRobotics USR997902 Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
     •   Xterasys XN-152 10/100/1000 NIC (8169)

LOADER TUNABLES

     Tunables can be set at the loader(8) prompt before booting the kernel or stored in
     loader.conf(5).

     hw.re.intr_filter
             This tunable makes driver use interrupt filter handler on controllers that support
             MSI/MSI-X capability.  If MSI/MSI-X is disabled by administrator this tunable has no
             effect and driver will use interrupt filter handler.  The default value is 0 to use
             interrupt thread handler.

     hw.re.msi_disable
             This tunable disables MSI support on the Ethernet hardware.  The default value is 0.

     hw.re.msix_disable
             This tunable disables MSI-X support on the Ethernet hardware.  The default value is
             0.

     hw.re.prefer_iomap
             This tunable controls which register mapping should be used on the specified device.
             A non-zero value enables I/O space register mapping.  The default value is 0 to use
             memory space register mapping.

SYSCTL VARIABLES

     The following variables are available as both sysctl(8) variables and loader(8) tunables:

     dev.re.%d.int_rx_mod
             Maximum amount of time to delay receive interrupt processing in units of 1us.  The
             accepted range is 0 to 65, the default is 65(65us).  Value 0 completely disables the
             interrupt moderation.  The interface need to be brought down and up again before a
             change takes effect.

DIAGNOSTICS

     re%d: couldn't map memory  A fatal initialization error has occurred.

     re%d: couldn't map ports  A fatal initialization error has occurred.

     re%d: couldn't map interrupt  A fatal initialization error has occurred.

     re%d: no memory for softc struct!  The driver failed to allocate memory for per-device
     instance information during initialization.

     re%d: failed to enable memory mapping!  The driver failed to initialize PCI shared memory
     mapping.  This might happen if the card is not in a bus-master slot.

     re%d: no memory for jumbo buffers!  The driver failed to allocate memory for jumbo frames
     during initialization.

     re%d: watchdog timeout  The device has stopped responding to the network, or there is a
     problem with the network connection (cable).

HISTORY

     The re device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.2.

AUTHORS

     The re driver was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@windriver.com>.

BUGS

     The Xterasys XN-152 32-bit PCI NIC, which uses the RTL8169 MAC and Marvell 88E1000 PHY, has
     a defect that causes DMA corruption if the board is plugged into a 64-bit PCI slot.  The
     defect lies in the board design, not the chip itself: the PCI REQ64# and ACK64# lines should
     be pulled high, but they are not.  The result is that the 8169 chip is tricked into
     performing 64-bit DMA transfers even though a 64-bit data path between the NIC and the bus
     does not actually exist.

     Unfortunately, it is not possible to correct this problem in software, however it is
     possible to detect it.  When the re driver is loaded, it will run a diagnostic routine
     designed to validate DMA operation by placing the chip in digital loopback mode and
     initiating a packet transmission.  If the card functions properly, the transmitted data will
     be echoed back unmodified.  If the echoed data is corrupt, the driver will print an error
     message on the console and abort the device attach.  The user should ensure the NIC is
     installed in a 32-bit PCI slot to avoid this problem.

     The RealTek 8169, 8169S and 8110S chips appear to only be capable of transmitting jumbo
     frames up to 7.5K in size.