vx(4)
NAME
- vx - 3Com EtherLink III / Fast EtherLink III (3c59x) Ether
- net driver
SYNOPSIS
To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following
line in your
kernel configuration file:
device vx
Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time,
place the
following line in loader.conf(5):
if_vx_load="YES"
DESCRIPTION
- The vx driver provides support for the 3Com ``Vortex''
- chipset.
- The medium selection can be influenced by the following link
- flags to the
ifconfig(8) command: - link0 Use the AUI port.
link1 Use the BNC port.
link2 Use the UTP port.
HARDWARE
The vx driver supports the following cards:
+o 3Com 3c590 EtherLink III PCI
+o 3Com 3c592 EtherLink III EISA
+o 3Com 3c595 Fast EtherLink III PCI in 10 Mbps mode
+o 3Com 3c597 Fast EtherLink III EISA in 10 Mbps mode
DIAGNOSTICS
- vx%d: not configured; kernel is built for only %d devices.
- There are not
enough devices in the kernel configuration file for the num - ber of
adapters present in the system. Add devices to the configu - ration file,
rebuild the kernel, and reboot. - All other diagnostics indicate either a hardware problem or
- a bug in the
driver.
CAVEATS
- Some early-revision 3c590 cards are defective and suffer
- from many
receive overruns, which cause lost packets. The author has - attempted to
implement a test for it based on the information supplied by - 3Com, but
the test resulted mostly in spurious warnings. - The performance of this driver is somewhat limited by the
- fact that it
uses only polled-mode I/O and does not make use of the bus - mastering
capability of the cards.
SEE ALSO
arp(4), netintro(4), ng_ether(4), ifconfig(8)
HISTORY
- The vx device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 2.1. It was
- derived from
the ep driver, from which it inherits most of its limita - tions.
AUTHORS
- The vx device driver and this manual page were written by
- Fred Gray
<fgray@rice.edu>, based on the work of Herb Peyerl and with - the assistance of numerous others.
BUGS
- The vx driver is known not to reset the adapter correctly
- following a
warm boot on some systems. - The vx driver has not been exhaustively tested with all the
- models of
cards that it claims to support. - BSD July 16, 2005