Linux Driver for the Intel® PRO/100 Family of Adapters

# Linux* Base Driver for the Intel® PRO/100 Family of Adapters

In This Release

Identifying Your Adapter

Building and Installation

Driver Configuration Parameters

Additional Configurations

Known Issues

## In This Release

This file describes the Linux* Base Driver for the Intel® PRO/100 Family of Adapters, version 3.4.x. This driver supports the 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels.
This driver includes support for Itanium®2-based systems.

For questions related to hardware requirements, refer to the documentation supplied with your Intel PRO/100 adapter.

## Identifying Your Adapter.

For more information on how to identify your adapter, go to the Adapter & Driver ID Guide at:

> http://support.intel.com/support/network/adapter/pro100/21397.htm

For the latest Intel network drivers for Linux, refer to the following website. In the search field, enter your adapter name or type, or use the networking link on the left to search for your adapter:

> http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/support_intel.asp

## Building and Installation

To build a binary RPM* package of this driver run 'rpmbuild -tb <filename.tar.gz>'. Replace <filename.tar.gz> with the specific file name of the driver.

NOTES:

- For the build to work properly it is important that the currently running kernel MATCH the version and configuration of the installed kernel source. If you have just recompiled your kernel, reboot the system and choose the correct kernel to boot.

- RPM functionality has only been tested in Red Hat distributions.

1. Move the base driver tar file to the directory of your choice. For example, use /home/username/e100 or /usr/local/src/e100.

2. Untar/unzip the archive by entering the following, where <x.x.x> is the version number for the driver tar:

   > tar xfz e100-<x.x.x>.tar.gz

3. Change to the driver src directory by entering the following, where <x.x.x> is the version number for the driver tar:

   > cd e100-<x.x.x>/src/

4. Compile the driver module:
   make install
   The binary will be installed as below:
   /lib/modules/<kernel_version>/kernel/drivers/net/e100/e100.[k]o
   The install location listed above is the default locations. It may not be correct for certain Linux distributions. For more information, see ldistrib.htm.

5. Install the module:

   > modprobe e100

6. Assign an IP address to the interface by entering the following, where <x> is the interface number:

   > ifconfig eth<x> <IP_address>

7. Verify that the interface works. Enter the following, where <IP_address> is the IP address for another machine on the same subnet as the interface that is being tested:

   > ping <IP_address>

## Driver Configuration Parameters

The default value for each parameter is generally the recommended setting, unless otherwise noted.

### Rx Descriptors:

Number of receive descriptors. A receive descriptor is a data structure that describes a receive buffer and its attributes to the network controller. The data in the descriptor is used by the controller to write data from the controller to host memory. In the 3.0.x driver the valid range for this parameter is 64-256. The default value is 64. This parameter can be changed using the command
ethtool –G eth? rx n, where n is the number of desired rx descriptors.

## Tx Descriptors:

Number of transmit descriptors. A transmit descriptor is a data structure that describes a transmit buffer and its attributes to the network controller. The data in the descriptor is used by the controller to read data from the host memory to the controller. In the 3.0.x driver the valid range for this parameter is 64-256. The default value is 64. This parameter can be changed using the command
ethtool –G eth? tx n, where n is the number of desired tx descriptors.

### Speed/Duplex:

The driver auto-negotiates the link speed and duplex settings by default. Ethtool can be used as follows to force speed/duplex.
ethtool –s eth? autoneg off speed {10|100} duplex {full|half}

| NOTE: Setting the speed/duplex to incorrect values will cause the link to fail.

### Event Log Message Level:

The driver uses the message level flag to log events to syslog. The message level can be set at driver load time. It can also be set using the command
ethtool -s eth? msglvl n

## Additional Configurations

### Configuring the Driver on Different Distributions

Configuring a network driver to load properly when the system is started is distribution dependent. Typically, the configuration process involves adding an alias line to /etc/modules.conf as well as editing other system startup scripts and/or configuration files. Many popular Linux distributions ship with tools to make these changes for you. To learn the proper way to configure a network device for your system, refer to your distribution documentation. If during this process you are asked for the driver or module name, the name for the Linux Base Driver for the Intel PRO/100 Family of Adapters is e100.

As an example, if you install the e100 driver for two PRO/100 adapters (eth0 and eth1), add the following to modules.conf:

> alias eth0 e100
> alias eth1 e100

### Viewing Link Messages

In order to see link messages and other Intel driver information on your console, you must set the dmesg level up to six. This can be done by entering the following on the command line before loading the e100 driver:

> dmesg -n 8

If you wish to see all messages issued by the driver, including debug messages, set the dmesg level to eight.

| NOTE: This setting is not saved across reboots.

### Ethtool

The driver utilizes the ethtool interface for driver configuration and diagnostics, as well as displaying statistical information. Ethtool version 1.6 or later is required for this functionality.

The latest release of ethtool can be found at: http://sf.net/projects/gkernel.

NOTES:

- This driver uses mii support from the kernel. As a result, when there is no link, ethtool will report speed/duplex to be 10/half.

- Ethtool 1.6 only supports a limited set of ethtool options. Support for a more complete ethtool feature set can be enabled by upgrading ethtool to ethtool-1.8.1.

### Enabling Wake on LAN* (WoL)

WoL is provided through the Ethtool* utility. Ethtool is included with Red Hat* 8.0. For other Linux distributions, download and install Ethtool from the following website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gkernel.

For instructions on enabling WoL with Ethtool, refer to the Ethtool man page.

WoL will be enabled on the system during the next shut down or reboot. For this driver version, in order to enable WoL, the e100 driver must be loaded when shutting down or rebooting the system.

### NAPI

NAPI (Rx polling mode) is supported in the e100 driver. NAPI is enabled or disabled based on the configuration of the kernel. To override the default, use the following compile-time flags.

To enable NAPI, compile the driver module, passing in a configuration option:

> make CFLAGS_EXTRA=-DE100_NAPI install

To disable NAPI, compile the driver module, passing in a configuration option:

> make CFLAGS_EXTRA=-DE100_NO_NAPI install

See http://www.cyberus.ca/~hadi/usenix-paper.tgz for more information on NAPI.

## Known Issues

| NOTE: For distribution-specific information, see ldistrib.htm.

### Driver Compilation

When trying to compile the driver by running make install, the following error may occur:

"Linux kernel source not configured - missing version.h"

To solve this issue, create the version.h file by going to the Linux source tree and entering:

> make include/linux/version.h

### Multiple Interfaces on Same Ethernet Broadcast Network

Due to the default ARP behavior on Linux, it is not possible to have one system on two IP networks in the same Ethernet broadcast domain (non-partitioned switch) behave as expected. All Ethernet interfaces will respond to IP traffic for any IP address assigned to the system. This results in unbalanced receive traffic.

If you have multiple interfaces in a server, either turn on ARP filtering by

1. entering: echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/arp_filter (this only works if your kernel's version is higher than 2.4.5), or
2. installing the interfaces in separate broadcast domains (either in different switches or in a switch partitioned to VLANs).

`Last modified on 3/08/05 10:12a Revision 3`