xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man4/man4.vax/en.4 (revision d9158b13b5dfe46201430699a3f7a235ecf28df3)
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32.\"     from: @(#)en.4	6.5 (Berkeley) 3/27/91
33.\"	$Id: en.4,v 1.2 1993/08/01 07:36:23 mycroft Exp $
34.\"
35.Dd March 27, 1991
36.Dt EN 4 vax
37.Os BSD 4.2
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm en
40.Nd Xerox 3 Mb/s Ethernet interface
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Cd "device en0 at uba0 csr 161000 vector enrint enxint encollide"
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44The
45.Nm en
46interface provides access to a 3 Mb/s Ethernet network.
47Due to limitations in the hardware,
48.Tn DMA
49transfers
50to and from the network must take place in the lower 64K bytes
51of the
52.Tn UNIBUS
53address space, and thus this must be among the first
54.Tn UNIBUS
55devices enabled after boot.
56.Pp
57Each of the host's network addresses
58is specified at boot time with an
59.Dv SIOCSIFADDR
60.Xr ioctl 2 .
61The station address is discovered by probing the on-board Ethernet
62address register, and is used to verify the protocol addresses.
63No packets will be sent or accepted until
64a network address is supplied.
65.Pp
66The interface software implements an exponential backoff algorithm
67when notified of a collision on the cable.  This algorithm utilizes
68a 16-bit mask and the
69.Tn VAX-11 Ns 's
70interval timer in calculating a series
71of random backoff values.  The algorithm is as follows:
72.Pp
73.Bl -enum -offset indent
74.It
75Initialize the mask to be all 1's.
76.It
77If the mask is zero, 16 retries have been made and we give
78up.
79.It
80Shift the mask left one bit and formulate a backoff by
81masking the interval timer with the mask (this is actually
82the two's complement of the value).
83.It
84Use the value calculated in step 3 to delay before retransmitting
85the packet.
86.El
87.Pp
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 .
103.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
104.Bl -diag
105.It en%d: output error.
106The hardware indicated an error on
107the previous transmission.
108.Pp
109.It en%d: send error.
110After 16 retransmissions using the
111exponential backoff algorithm described above, the packet
112was dropped.
113.Pp
114.It en%d: input error.
115The hardware indicated an error
116in reading a packet off the cable.
117.Pp
118.It en%d: can't handle af%d.
119The interface was handed
120a message with addresses formatted in an unsuitable address
121family; the packet was dropped.
122.El
123.Sh SEE ALSO
124.Xr netintro 4 ,
125.Xr inet 4
126.Sh HISTORY
127The
128.Nm
129driver appeared in
130.Bx 4.2 .
131.Sh BUGS
132The device has insufficient buffering to handle back to
133back packets.  This makes use in a production environment
134painful.
135.Pp
136The hardware does word at a time
137.Tn DMA
138without byte swapping.
139To compensate, byte swapping of user data must either be done
140by the user or by the system.  A kludge to byte swap only
141.Tn IP
142packets is provided if the
143.Dv ENF_SWABIPS
144flag is defined in
145the driver and set at boot time with an
146.Dv SIOCSIFFLAGS
147.Xr ioctl .
148