NAME
re —
RealTek
8139C+/8169/8169S/8168/8110S/8111 PCI Ethernet adapter driver
SYNOPSIS
re* at pci? dev ? function ?
re* at cardbus? function ?
DESCRIPTION
The
re driver provides support for various NICs based on the
RealTek RTL8139C+, RTL8169, RTL8169S, RTL8168, and RTL8110S PCI/Cardbus
Ethernet controllers, including the following:
- Alloy Computer Products
EtherGOLD 1439E 10/100 (8139C+)
- Compaq Evo N1015v Integrated
Ethernet (8139C+)
- Gigabyte 7N400 Pro2
Integrated Gigabit Ethernet (8110S)
- NETGEAR GA311 (8169S)
- PLANEX COMMUNICATIONS Inc.
GN-1200TC (8169S)
- Xterasys XN-152 10/100/1000
NIC (8169)
- Corega CG-LAPCIGT Gigabit
Ethernet (8169S)
- D-Link DGE-528T Gigabit
Ethernet (8169S)
- US Robotics (3Com) USR997902
Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
- Linksys EG1032 rev. 3
Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
NICs based on the 8139C+ are capable of 10 and 100Mbps speeds over CAT5 cable.
NICs based on the 8169, 8169S, 8168, and 8110S 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, and
its PHY is supported by
rlphy(4).
The 8169 is a 10/100/1000 MAC only, requiring a GMII or TBI external PHY and
some 8169 based boards have Marvell 88E1000 PHY supported by
makphy(4). The 8169S and 8110S
are single-chip devices containing both a 10/100/1000 MAC and 10/100/1000
copper PHY, which is supported by
rgephy(4). 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. 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).
DIAGNOSTICS
- re%d: can't map i/o space
- A fatal initialization error has occurred.
- re%d: can't map mem space
- A fatal initialization error has occurred.
- re%d: couldn't map interrupt
- A fatal initialization error has occurred.
- 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),
cardbus(4),
mii(4),
netintro(4),
pci(4),
rgephy(4),
rlphy(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 and was ported to
NetBSD
2.0.
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.