xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man4/man4.vax/en.4 (revision cda4f8f6ee55684e8d311b86c99ea59191e6b74f)
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32.\"     @(#)en.4	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
33.\"
34.Dd June 5, 1993
35.Dt EN 4 vax
36.Os BSD 4.2
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm en
39.Nd Xerox 3 Mb/s Ethernet interface
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.Cd "device en0 at uba0 csr 161000 vector enrint enxint encollide"
42.Sh DESCRIPTION
43The
44.Nm en
45interface provides access to a 3 Mb/s Ethernet network.
46Due to limitations in the hardware,
47.Tn DMA
48transfers
49to and from the network must take place in the lower 64K bytes
50of the
51.Tn UNIBUS
52address space, and thus this must be among the first
53.Tn UNIBUS
54devices enabled after boot.
55.Pp
56Each of the host's network addresses
57is specified at boot time with an
58.Dv SIOCSIFADDR
59.Xr ioctl 2 .
60The station address is discovered by probing the on-board Ethernet
61address register, and is used to verify the protocol addresses.
62No packets will be sent or accepted until
63a network address is supplied.
64.Pp
65The interface software implements an exponential backoff algorithm
66when notified of a collision on the cable.  This algorithm utilizes
67a 16-bit mask and the
68.Tn VAX-11 Ns 's
69interval timer in calculating a series
70of random backoff values.  The algorithm is as follows:
71.Pp
72.Bl -enum -offset indent
73.It
74Initialize the mask to be all 1's.
75.It
76If the mask is zero, 16 retries have been made and we give
77up.
78.It
79Shift the mask left one bit and formulate a backoff by
80masking the interval timer with the mask (this is actually
81the two's complement of the value).
82.It
83Use the value calculated in step 3 to delay before retransmitting
84the packet.
85.El
86.Pp
87The interface handles both Internet and
88.Tn NS
89protocol families.
90It normally tries to use a
91.Dq trailer
92encapsulation
93to minimize copying data on input and output.
94The use of trailers is negotiated with
95.Tn ARP .
96This negotiation may be disabled, on a per-interface basis,
97by setting the
98.Dv IFF_NOTRAILERS
99flag with an
100.Dv SIOCSIFFLAGS
101.Xr ioctl .
102.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
103.Bl -diag
104.It en%d: output error.
105The hardware indicated an error on
106the previous transmission.
107.Pp
108.It en%d: send error.
109After 16 retransmissions using the
110exponential backoff algorithm described above, the packet
111was dropped.
112.Pp
113.It en%d: input error.
114The hardware indicated an error
115in reading a packet off the cable.
116.Pp
117.It en%d: can't handle af%d.
118The interface was handed
119a message with addresses formatted in an unsuitable address
120family; the packet was dropped.
121.El
122.Sh SEE ALSO
123.Xr netintro 4 ,
124.Xr inet 4
125.Sh HISTORY
126The
127.Nm
128driver appeared in
129.Bx 4.2 .
130.Sh BUGS
131The device has insufficient buffering to handle back to
132back packets.  This makes use in a production environment
133painful.
134.Pp
135The hardware does word at a time
136.Tn DMA
137without byte swapping.
138To compensate, byte swapping of user data must either be done
139by the user or by the system.  A kludge to byte swap only
140.Tn IP
141packets is provided if the
142.Dv ENF_SWABIPS
143flag is defined in
144the driver and set at boot time with an
145.Dv SIOCSIFFLAGS
146.Xr ioctl .
147