re(4)
NAME
- re - RealTek 8139C+/8169/8169S/8110S PCI 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, RTL8169S and RTL8110S PCI Ethernet con - trollers.
- NICs based on the 8139C+ are capable of 10 and 100Mbps
- speeds over CAT5
cable. NICs based on the 8169, 8169S and 8110S are capable - of 10, 100
and 1000Mbps operation. - All NICs supported by the re driver have TCP/IP checksum of
- fload and
hardware VLAN tagging/insertion features, and use a descrip - tor-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 8169S and 8110S 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 ifcon
- fig(8).
HARDWARE
- The re driver supports RealTek RTL8139C+, RTL8169, RTL8169S
- and RTL8110S
based Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet adapters including: - +o Alloy Computer Products EtherGOLD 1439E 10/100 (8139C+)
+o Compaq Evo N1015v Integrated Ethernet (8139C+)
+o Corega CG-LAPCIGT Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
+o D-Link DGE-528(T) Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
+o Gigabyte 7N400 Pro2 Integrated Gigabit Ethernet (8110S)
+o LevelOne GNC-0105T (8169S)
+o PLANEX COMMUNICATIONS Inc. GN-1200TC (8169S)
+o Xterasys XN-152 10/100/1000 NIC (8169)
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 al
- locate 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 al
- locate 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).
SEE ALSO
- arp(4), miibus(4), netintro(4), ng_ether(4), polling(4),
- vlan(4),
ifconfig(8) - RealTek Semiconductor RTL8139C+, RTL8169, RTL8169S and
- RTL8110S
datasheets, http://www.realtek.com.tw/.
HISTORY
The re device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.2.
AUTHORS
- The re driver was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@windriv
- er.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 oper - ation by placing the chip in digital loopback mode and initiating a pack
- et 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 insure 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. - BSD July 16, 2004