NAME

tx — SMC 83c17x Fast Ethernet device driver

SYNOPSIS

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

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

if_tx_load="YES"

DEPRECATION NOTICE

The tx driver is not present in FreeBSD 13.0 and later. See https://github.com/freebsd/fcp/blob/master/fcp-0101.md for more information.

DESCRIPTION

The tx driver provides support for the Ethernet adapters based on the SMC 83c17x (EPIC) chips. These are mostly SMC 9432 series cards.

The tx driver supports the following media types (depending on card's capabilities):

autoselect

Enable autonegotiation (default).

100baseFX

Set 100Mbps (Fast Ethernet) fiber optic operation.

100baseTX

Set 100Mbps (Fast Ethernet) twisted pair operation.

10baseT/UTP

Set 10Mbps on 10baseT port.

10base2/BNC

Set 10Mbps on 10base2 port.

The tx driver supports the following media options:

full-duplex

Set full-duplex operation.

The tx driver supports oversized Ethernet packets (up to 1600 bytes). Refer to the ifconfig(8) man page on setting the interface's MTU.

The old “ifconfig tx0 linkN” method of configuration is not supported.

DIAGNOSTICS

tx%d: device timeout %d packets

The device stops responding. Device and driver reset follows this error.

tx%d: PCI fatal error occurred (%s)

One of following errors occurred: PCI Target Abort, PCI Master Abort, Data Parity Error or Address Parity Error. Device and driver reset follows this error.

tx%d: cannot allocate mbuf header/cluster

Cannot allocate memory for received packet. Packet thrown away.

tx%d: can't stop %s DMA

While resetting, the driver failed to stop the device correctly.

SEE ALSO

arp(4), miibus(4), netintro(4), ng_ether(4), ifconfig(8)

BUGS

The auto-negotiation does not work very well.