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VGE(4)                DragonFly Kernel Interfaces Manual                VGE(4)


NAME

     vge -- VIA Networking Technologies VT6122 PCI Gigabit Ethernet adapter
     driver


SYNOPSIS

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

           device miibus
           device vge

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

           if_vge_load="YES"


DESCRIPTION

     The vge driver provides support for various NICs and embedded Ethernet
     interfaces based on the VIA Networking Technologies VT6122 Gigabit
     Ethernet controller chips.

     The VT6122 is a 33/66Mhz 64-bit PCI device which combines a tri-speed MAC
     with an integrated 10/100/1000 copper PHY.  (Some older cards use an
     external PHY.)  The MAC supports TCP/IP hardware checksums (IPv4 only),
     TCP large send, VLAN tag insertion and stripping, as well as VLAN
     filtering, a 64-entry CAM filter and a 64-entry VLAN filter, 64-bit
     multicast hash filter, 4 separate transmit DMA queues, flow control and
     jumbo frames up to 16K in size.  The VT6122 has a 16K receive FIFO and
     48K transmit FIFO.

     The vge driver takes advantage of the VT6122's checksum offload and VLAN
     tagging features, as well as the jumbo frame and CAM filter support.  The
     CAM filter is used for multicast address filtering to provide 64 perfect
     multicast address filter support.  If it is necessary for the interface
     to join more than 64 multicast groups, the driver will switch over to
     using the hash filter.

     The jumbo frame support can be enabled by setting the interface MTU to
     any value larger than the default of 1500 bytes, up to a maximum of 9000
     bytes.  The receive and transmit checksum offload support can be toggled
     on and off using the ifconfig(8) utility.

     The vge 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.

     1000baseT    Set 1000baseT operation over twisted pair.  The ifconfig(8)
                  mediaopt option can also be used to select either
                  full-duplex or half-duplex modes.

     The vge driver supports the following media options:

     full-duplex  Force full duplex operation.

     half-duplex  Force half duplex operation.

     The vge driver also supports one special link option for 1000baseT cards:

     link0  With 1000baseT cards, establishing a link between two ports
            requires that one port be configured as a master and the other a
            slave.  With autonegotiation, the master/slave settings will be
            chosen automatically.  However when manually selecting the link
            state, it is necessary to force one side of the link to be a
            master and the other a slave.  The vge driver configures the ports
            as slaves by default.  Setting the link0 flag with ifconfig(8)
            will set a port as a master instead.

     For more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8).  The
     vge driver supports polling(4).


HARDWARE

     The vge driver supports VIA Networking VT3119 and VT6122 based Gigabit
     Ethernet adapters including:

     o   VIA Networking LAN-on-motherboard Gigabit Ethernet
     o   ZyXEL GN650-T 64-bit PCI Gigabit Ethernet NIC (ZX1701)
     o   ZyXEL GN670-T 32-bit PCI Gigabit Ethernet NIC (ZX1702)


DIAGNOSTICS

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

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

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

     vge%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.

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


SEE ALSO

     arp(4), ifmedia(4), miibus(4), netintro(4), ng_ether(4), polling(4),
     vlan(4), ifconfig(8)


HISTORY

     The vge device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.3.  It was imported
     into DragonFly 1.5.


AUTHORS

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


BUGS

     polling(4) may not work with vge.

DragonFly 5.5                    May 20, 2006                    DragonFly 5.5

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