Ubuntu Manpage: re — RealTek 8139C+/8169/816xS/811xS/8168/810xE/8111 PCI/PCIe Ethernet adapter driver

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NAME

       re — RealTek 8139C+/8169/816xS/811xS/8168/810xE/8111 PCI/PCIe Ethernet adapter driver

SYNOPSIS

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

             device miibus
             device re

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

             if_re_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

The re driver provides support for various NICs based on the RealTek RTL8139C+, RTL8169, RTL816xS,
RTL811xS, RTL8168, RTL810xE and RTL8111 PCI and PCIe Ethernet controllers.

NICs based on the 8139C+ and 810xE are capable of 10 and 100Mbps speeds over CAT5 cable. NICs based on
the 8169, 816xS, 811xS, 8168 and 8111 are capable of 10, 100 and 1000Mbps operation.

All NICs supported by the re driver have TCP/IP checksum offload and hardware VLAN tagging/insertion
features, and use a descriptor-based DMA mechanism. They are also capable of TCP large send (TCP
segmentation offload).

The 8139C+ is a single-chip solution combining both a 10/100 MAC and PHY. The 8169 is a 10/100/1000 MAC
only, requiring a GMII or TBI external PHY. The 816xS, 811xS, 8168 and 8111 are single-chip devices
containing both a 10/100/1000 MAC and 10/100/1000 copper PHY. Standalone 10/100/1000 cards are available
in both 32-bit PCI and 64-bit PCI models. The 8110S is designed for embedded LAN-on-motherboard
applications.

The 8169, 8169S and 8110S also support jumbo frames, which can be configured via the interface MTU
setting. The MTU is limited to 7422, since the chip cannot transmit larger frames. Selecting an MTU
larger than 1500 bytes with the ifconfig(8) utility configures the adapter to receive and transmit jumbo
frames.

The re driver supports the following media types:

autoselect Enable autoselection of the media type and options. The user can manually override the
autoselected mode by adding media options to rc.conf(5).

10baseT/UTP Set 10Mbps operation. The ifconfig(8) mediaopt option can also be used to select either
full-duplex or half-duplex modes.

100baseTX Set 100Mbps (Fast Ethernet) operation. The ifconfig(8) mediaopt option can also be used to
select either full-duplex or half-duplex modes.

1000baseTX Set 1000baseTX operation over twisted pair. The RealTek gigE chips support 1000Mbps in
full-duplex mode only.

The re driver supports the following media options:

full-duplex Force full duplex operation.

half-duplex Force half duplex operation.

For more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8).

HARDWARE

       The  re  driver  supports  RealTek  RTL8139C+, RTL8169, RTL816xS, RTL811xS, RTL8168, RTL810xE and RTL8111
       based Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet adapters including:

       •   Alloy Computer Products EtherGOLD 1439E 10/100 (8139C+)
       •   Compaq Evo N1015v Integrated Ethernet (8139C+)
       •   Corega CG-LAPCIGT Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
       •   D-Link DGE-528(T) Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
       •   Gigabyte 7N400 Pro2 Integrated Gigabit Ethernet (8110S)
       •   LevelOne GNC-0105T (8169S)
       •   LinkSys EG1032 (32-bit PCI)
       •   PLANEX COMMUNICATIONS Inc. GN-1200TC (8169S)
       •   TP-Link TG-3468 v2 Gigabit Ethernet (8168)
       •   USRobotics USR997902 Gigabit Ethernet (8169S)
       •   Xterasys XN-152 10/100/1000 NIC (8169)

LOADER TUNABLES

       Tunables can be set at the loader(8) prompt before booting the kernel or stored in loader.conf(5).

       hw.re.intr_filter
               This tunable makes driver use interrupt filter handler  on  controllers  that  support  MSI/MSI-X
               capability.  If MSI/MSI-X is disabled by administrator this tunable has no effect and driver will
               use interrupt filter handler.  The default value is 0 to use interrupt thread handler.

       hw.re.msi_disable
               This tunable disables MSI support on the Ethernet hardware.  The default value is 0.

       hw.re.msix_disable
               This tunable disables MSI-X support on the Ethernet hardware.  The default value is 0.

       hw.re.prefer_iomap
               This  tunable controls which register mapping should be used on the specified device.  A non-zero
               value enables I/O space register mapping.  The default value is 0 to use  memory  space  register
               mapping.

SYSCTL VARIABLES

       The following variables are available as both sysctl(8) variables and loader(8) tunables:

       dev.re.%d.int_rx_mod
               Maximum amount of time to delay receive interrupt processing in units of 1us.  The accepted range
               is  0 to 65, the default is 65(65us).  Value 0 completely disables the interrupt moderation.  The
               interface need to be brought down and up again before a change takes effect.

DIAGNOSTICS

       re%d: couldn't map memory  A fatal initialization error has occurred.

       re%d: couldn't map ports  A fatal initialization error has occurred.

       re%d: couldn't map interrupt  A fatal initialization error has occurred.

       re%d: no memory for softc struct!    The  driver  failed  to  allocate  memory  for  per-device  instance
       information during initialization.

       re%d:  failed to enable memory mapping!  The driver failed to initialize PCI shared memory mapping.  This
       might happen if the card is not in a bus-master slot.

       re%d: no memory for jumbo buffers!  The  driver  failed  to  allocate  memory  for  jumbo  frames  during
       initialization.

       re%d:  watchdog timeout  The device has stopped responding to the network, or there is a problem with the
       network connection (cable).

HISTORY

       The re device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.2.

AUTHORS

       The re driver was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@windriver.com>.

BUGS

       The Xterasys XN-152 32-bit PCI NIC, which uses the RTL8169 MAC and Marvell 88E1000 PHY, has a defect that
       causes DMA corruption if the board is plugged into a 64-bit PCI slot.   The  defect  lies  in  the  board
       design,  not  the  chip  itself: the PCI REQ64# and ACK64# lines should be pulled high, but they are not.
       The result is that the 8169 chip is tricked into performing 64-bit DMA transfers  even  though  a  64-bit
       data path between the NIC and the bus does not actually exist.

       Unfortunately,  it  is not possible to correct this problem in software, however it is possible to detect
       it.  When the re driver is loaded, it will run a diagnostic routine designed to validate DMA operation by
       placing the chip in digital loopback mode and initiating a packet transmission.  If  the  card  functions
       properly, the transmitted data will be echoed back unmodified.  If the echoed data is corrupt, the driver
       will  print  an error message on the console and abort the device attach.  The user should ensure the NIC
       is installed in a 32-bit PCI slot to avoid this problem.

       The RealTek 8169, 8169S and 8110S chips appear to only be capable of transmitting jumbo frames up to 7.5K
       in size.

Debian                                         September 21, 2016                                          RE(4)