xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man4/man4.vax/en.4 (revision bdc22b2e01993381dcefeff2bc9b56ca75a4235c)
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30.\"     from: @(#)en.4	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
31.\"
32.Dd June 5, 1993
33.Dt EN 4 vax
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm en
37.Nd Xerox 3 Mb/s Ethernet interface
38.Sh SYNOPSIS
39.Cd "en0 at uba0 csr 161000 vector enrint enxint encollide"
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41NOTE: This driver has not been ported from
42.Bx 4.4
43yet.
44.Pp
45The
46.Nm en
47interface provides access to a 3 Mb/s Ethernet network.
48Due to limitations in the hardware,
49.Tn DMA
50transfers
51to and from the network must take place in the lower 64K bytes
52of the
53.Tn UNIBUS
54address space, and thus this must be among the first
55.Tn UNIBUS
56devices enabled after boot.
57.Pp
58Each of the host's network addresses
59is specified at boot time with an
60.Dv SIOCSIFADDR
61.Xr ioctl 2 .
62The station address is discovered by probing the on-board Ethernet
63address register, and is used to verify the protocol addresses.
64No packets will be sent or accepted until
65a network address is supplied.
66.Pp
67The interface software implements an exponential backoff algorithm
68when notified of a collision on the cable.
69This algorithm uses a 16-bit mask and the
70.Tn VAX-11 Ns 's
71interval timer in calculating a series
72of random backoff values.
73The algorithm is as follows:
74.Bl -enum -offset indent
75.It
76Initialize the mask to be all 1's.
77.It
78If the mask is zero, 16 retries have been made and we give
79up.
80.It
81Shift the mask left one bit and formulate a backoff by
82masking the interval timer with the mask (this is actually
83the two's complement of the value).
84.It
85Use the value calculated in step 3 to delay before retransmitting
86the packet.
87.El
88The interface handles both Internet and
89.Tn NS
90protocol families.
91It normally tries to use a
92.Dq trailer
93encapsulation
94to minimize copying data on input and output.
95The use of trailers is negotiated with
96.Tn ARP .
97This negotiation may be disabled, on a per-interface basis,
98by setting the
99.Dv IFF_NOTRAILERS
100flag with an
101.Dv SIOCSIFFLAGS
102.Xr ioctl 2 .
103.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
104.Bl -diag
105.It en%d: output error.
106The hardware indicated an error on
107the previous transmission.
108.It en%d: send error.
109After 16 retransmissions using the
110exponential backoff algorithm described above, the packet
111was dropped.
112.It en%d: input error.
113The hardware indicated an error
114in reading a packet off the cable.
115.It en%d: can't handle af%d.
116The interface was handed
117a message with addresses formatted in an unsuitable address
118family; the packet was dropped.
119.El
120.Sh SEE ALSO
121.Xr inet 4 ,
122.Xr netintro 4
123.Sh HISTORY
124The
125.Nm
126driver appeared in
127.Bx 4.2 .
128.Sh BUGS
129The device has insufficient buffering to handle back to
130back packets.
131This makes use in a production environment painful.
132.Pp
133The hardware does word at a time
134.Tn DMA
135without byte swapping.
136To compensate, byte swapping of user data must either be done
137by the user or by the system.
138A kludge to byte swap only
139.Tn IP
140packets is provided if the
141.Dv ENF_SWABIPS
142flag is defined in
143the driver and set at boot time with an
144.Dv SIOCSIFFLAGS
145.Xr ioctl 2 .
146