sk98lin - phpMan

SK98LIN(4) SK98LIN(4)

NAME
sk98lin - Marvell/SysKonnect Gigabit Ethernet driver v6.21

SYNOPSIS
insmod sk98lin.o [Speed_A=i,j,...] [Speed_B=i,j,...] [AutoNeg_A=i,j,...]
[AutoNeg_B=i,j,...] [DupCap_A=i,j,...] [DupCap_B=i,j,...] [FlowCtrl_A=i,j,...]
[FlowCtrl_B=i,j,...] [Role_A=i,j,...] [Role_B=i,j,...] [ConType=i,j,...] [Mod-
eration=i,j,...] [IntsPerSec=i,j,...] [PrefPort=i,j,...] [RlmtMode=i,j,...]

DESCRIPTION
sk98lin is the Gigabit Ethernet driver for Marvell and SysKonnect network adapter
cards. It supports SysKonnect SK-98xx/SK-95xx compliant Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
and any Yukon compliant chipset.

When loading the driver using insmod, parameters for the network adapter cards
might be stated as a sequence of comma separated commands. If for instance two net-
work adapters are installed and AutoNegotiation on Port A of the first adapter
should be ON, but on the Port A of the second adapter switched OFF, one must enter:

insmod sk98lin.o AutoNeg_A=On,Off

After sk98lin is bound to one or more adapter cards and the /proc filesystem is
mounted on your system, a dedicated statistics file will be created in folder
/proc/net/sk98lin for all ports of the installed network adapter cards. Those files
are named eth[x] whereas x is the number of the interface that has been assigned to
a dedicated port by the system.

If loading is finished, any desired IP address can be assigned to the respective
eth[x] interface using the ifconfig(8) command. This causes the adapter to connect
to the Ethernet and to display a status message on the console saying "ethx: net-
work connection up using port y" followed by the configured or detected connection
parameters.

The sk98lin also supports large frames (also called jumbo frames). Using jumbo
frames can improve throughput tremendously when transferring large amounts of data.
To enable large frames, the MTU (maximum transfer unit) size for an interface is to
be set to a high value. The default MTU size is 1500 and can be changed up to 9000
(bytes). Setting the MTU size can be done when assigning the IP address to the
interface or later by using the ifconfig(8) command with the mtu parameter. If for
instance eth0 needs an IP address and a large frame MTU size, the following two
commands might be used:

ifconfig eth0 10.1.1.1
ifconfig eth0 mtu 9000

Those two commands might even be combined into one:

ifconfig eth0 10.1.1.1 mtu 9000

Note that large frames can only be used if your network infrastructure allows to do
so. This means, that any switch being used in your Ethernet must also support large
frames. Quite some switches support large frames, but need to be configured to do
so. Most of the times, their default setting is to support only standard frames
with an MTU size of 1500 (bytes). In addition to the switches inside the network,
all network adapters that are to be used must also be enabled regarding jumbo
frames. If an adapter is not set to receive large frames it will simply drop them.

Switching back to the standard Ethernet frame size can be done by using the ifcon-
fig(8) command again:

ifconfig eth0 mtu 1500

The Marvell/SysKonnect Gigabit Ethernet driver for Linux is able to support VLAN
and Link Aggregation according to IEEE standards 802.1, 802.1q, and 802.3ad. Those
features are only available after installation of open source modules which can be
found on the Internet:

VLAN: http://www.candelatech.com/~greear/vlan.html
Link Aggregation: http://www.st.rim.or.jp/~yumo

Note that Marvell/SysKonnect does not offer any support for these open source mod-
ules and does not take the responsibility for any kind of failures or problems
arising when using these modules.

PARAMETERS
Speed_A=i,j,...
This parameter is used to set the speed capabilities of port A of an adapter
card. It is only valid for Yukon copper adapters. Possible values are: 10,
100, 1000 or Auto whereas Auto is the default. Usually, the speed is negoti-
ated between the two ports during link establishment. If this fails, a port
can be forced to a specific setting with this parameter.

Speed_B=i,j,...
This parameter is used to set the speed capabilities of port B of an adapter
card. It is only valid for Yukon copper adapters. Possible values are: 10,
100, 1000 or Auto whereas Auto is the default. Usually, the speed is negoti-
ated between the two ports during link establishment. If this fails, a port
can be forced to a specific setting with this parameter.

AutoNeg_A=i,j,...
Enables or disables the use of autonegotiation of port A of an adapter card.
Possible values are: On, Off or Sense whereas On is the default. The Sense
mode automatically detects whether the link partner supports auto-negotia-
tion or not.

AutoNeg_B=i,j,...
Enables or disables the use of autonegotiation of port B of an adapter card.
Possible values are: On, Off or Sense whereas On is the default. The Sense
mode automatically detects whether the link partner supports auto-negotia-
tion or not.

DupCap_A=i,j,...
This parameter indicates the duplex mode to be used for port A of an adapter
card. Possible values are: Half, Full or Both whereas Both is the default.
This parameter is only relevant if AutoNeg_A of port A is not set to Sense.
If AutoNeg_A is set to On, all three values of DupCap_A ( Half, Full or
Both) might be stated. If AutoNeg_A is set to Off, only DupCap_A values Full
and Half are allowed. This DupCap_A parameter is useful if your link partner
does not support all possible duplex combinations.

DupCap_B=i,j,...
This parameter indicates the duplex mode to be used for port B of an adapter
card. Possible values are: Half, Full or Both whereas Both is the default.
This parameter is only relevant if AutoNeg_B of port B is not set to Sense.
If AutoNeg_B is set to On, all three values of DupCap_B ( Half, Full or
Both) might be stated. If AutoNeg_B is set to Off, only DupCap_B values Full
and Half are allowed. This DupCap_B parameter is useful if your link partner
does not support all possible duplex combinations.

FlowCtrl_A=i,j,...
This parameter can be used to set the flow control capabilities the port
reports during auto-negotiation. Possible values are: Sym, SymOrRem, LocSend
or None whereas SymOrRem is the default. The different modes have the fol-
lowing meaning:

Sym = Symmetric
both link partners are allowed to send PAUSE frames
SymOrRem = SymmetricOrRemote
both or only remote partner are allowed to send PAUSE frames
LocSend = LocalSend
only local link partner is allowed to send PAUSE frames
None = None
no link partner is allowed to send PAUSE frames

Note that this parameter is ignored if AutoNeg_A is set to Off.

FlowCtrl_B=i,j,...
This parameter can be used to set the flow control capabilities the port
reports during auto-negotiation. Possible values are: Sym, SymOrRem, LocSend
or None whereas SymOrRem is the default. The different modes have the fol-
lowing meaning:

Note that this parameter is ignored if AutoNeg_B is set to Off.

Role_A=i,j,...
This parameter is only valid for 1000Base-T adapter cards. For two 1000Base-
T ports to communicate, one must take the role of the master (providing tim-
ing information), while the other must be the slave. Possible values are:
Auto, Master or Slave whereas Auto is the default. Usually, the role of a
port is negotiated between two ports during link establishment, but if that
fails the port A of an adapter card can be forced to a specific setting with
this parameter.

Role_B=i,j,...
This parameter is only valid for 1000Base-T adapter cards. For two 1000Base-
T ports to communicate, one must take the role of the master (providing tim-
ing information), while the other must be the slave. Possible values are:
Auto, Master or Slave whereas Auto is the default. Usually, the role of a
port is negotiated between two ports during link establishment, but if that
fails the port B of an adapter card can be forced to a specific setting with
this parameter.

ConType=i,j,...
This parameter is a combination of all five per-port parameters within one
single parameter. This simplifies the configuration of both ports of an
adapter card. The different values of this variable reflect the most mean-
ingful combinations of port parameters. Possible values and their corre-
sponding combination of per-port parameters:

Stating any other port parameter together with this ConType parameter will
result in a merged configuration of those settings. This is due to the fact,
that the per-port parameters (e.g. Speed_A) have a higher priority than the
combined variable ConType.

Moderation=i,j,...
Interrupt moderation is employed to limit the maximum number of interrupts
the driver has to serve. That is, one or more interrupts (which indicate any
transmit or receive packet to be processed) are queued until the driver pro-
cesses them. When queued interrupts are to be served, is determined by the
IntsPerSec parameter, which is explained later below. Possible moderation
modes are: None, Static or Dynamic whereas None is the default. The differ-
ent modes have the following meaning:

None No interrupt moderation is applied on the adapter card. Therefore, each
transmit or receive interrupt is served immediately as soon as it appears on
the interrupt line of the adapter card.

Static Interrupt moderation is applied on the adapter card. All transmit and
receive interrupts are queued until a complete moderation interval ends. If
such a moderation interval ends, all queued interrupts are processed in one
big bunch without any delay. The term Static reflects the fact, that inter-
rupt moderation is always enabled, regardless how much network load is cur-
rently passing via a particular interface. In addition, the duration of the
moderation interval has a fixed length that never changes while the driver
is operational.

Dynamic Interrupt moderation might be applied on the adapter card, depending
on the load of the system. If the driver detects that the system load is too
high, the driver tries to shield the system against too much network load by
enabling interrupt moderation. If -- at a later time -- the CPU utilization
decreases again (or if the network load is negligible) the interrupt modera-
tion will automatically be disabled.

Interrupt moderation should be used when the driver has to handle one or
more interfaces with a high network load, which -- as a consequence -- leads
also to a high CPU utilization. When moderation is applied in such high net-
work load situations, CPU load might be reduced by 20-30% on slow computers.

Note that the drawback of using interrupt moderation is an increase of the
round-trip-time (RTT), due to the queuing and serving of interrupts at dedi-
cated moderation times.

IntsPerSec=i,j,...
This parameter determines the length of any interrupt moderation interval.
Assuming that static interrupt moderation is to be used, an IntsPerSec
parameter value of 2000 will lead to an interrupt moderation interval of 500
microseconds. Possible values for this parameter are in the range of
30...40000 (interrupts per second). The default value is 2000.

This parameter is only used, if either static or dynamic interrupt modera-
tion is enabled on a network adapter card. This parameter is ignored if no
moderation is applied.

Note that the duration of the moderation interval is to be chosen with care.
At first glance, selecting a very long duration (e.g. only 100 interrupts
per second) seems to be meaningful, but the increase of packet-processing
delay is tremendous. On the other hand, selecting a very short moderation
time might compensate the use of any moderation being applied.

PrefPort=i,j,...
This parameter is used to force the preferred port to A or B (on dual-port
network adapters). The preferred port is the one that is used if both ports
A and B are detected as fully functional. Possible values are: A or B
whereas A is the default.

RlmtMode=i,j,...
RLMT monitors the status of the port. If the link of the active port fails,
RLMT switches immediately to the standby link. The virtual link is main-
tained as long as at least one 'physical' link is up. This parameters
states how RLMT should monitor both ports. Possible values are: Check-
LinkState, CheckLocalPort, CheckSeg or DualNet whereas CheckLinkState is the
default. The different modes have the following meaning:

CheckLinkState Check link state only: RLMT uses the link state reported by
the adapter hardware for each individual port to determine whether a port
can be used for all network traffic or not.

CheckLocalPort In this mode, RLMT monitors the network path between the two
ports of an adapter by regularly exchanging packets between them. This mode
requires a network configuration in which the two ports are able to "see"
each other (i.e. there must not be any router between the ports).

CheckSeg Check local port and segmentation: This mode supports the same
functions as the CheckLocalPort mode and additionally checks network segmen-
tation between the ports. Therefore, this mode is only to be used if Gigabit
Ethernet switches are installed on the network that have been configured to
use the Spanning Tree protocol.

DualNet In this mode, ports A and B are used as separate devices. If you
have a dual port adapter, port A will be configured as eth[x]andportBas
eth[x+1]. Both ports can be used independently with distinct IP addresses.
The preferred port setting is not used. RLMT is turned off.

Note that RLMT modes CheckLocalPort and CheckLinkState are designed to oper-
ate in configurations where a network path between the ports on one adapter
exists. Moreover, they are not designed to work where adapters are connected
back-to-back.

FILES
/proc/net/sk98lin/eth[x]
The statistics file of a particular interface of an adapter card. It con-
tains generic information about the adapter card plus a detailed summary of
all transmit and receive counters.

/usr/src/linux/Documentation/network/sk98lin.txt
This is the README file of the sk98lin driver. It contains a detailed
installation HOWTO and describes all parameters of the driver. It denotes
also common problems and provides the solution to them.

BUGS
Report any bugs to linux AT syskonnect.de

AUTHORS
Ralph Roesler -- rroesler AT syskonnect.de
Mirko Lindner -- mlindner AT syskonnect.de

SEE ALSO
modprobe(8), insmod(8), ifconfig(8).

sk98lin 6.21 2003/12/17 10:03:18 SK98LIN(4)

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