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BGE(4)			    Kernel Interfaces Manual			BGE(4)

NAME
       bge -- Broadcom BCM57xx/BCM590x Gigabit/Fast Ethernet driver

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

	     device miibus
	     device bge

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

	     if_bge_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION
       The  bge	driver provides	support	for various NICs based on the Broadcom
       BCM570x,	571x, 572x, 575x, 576x,	578x, 5776x and	5778x Gigabit Ethernet
       controller chips	and the	590x and 5779x Fast Ethernet controller	chips.

       All of these NICs are capable of	10, 100	and 1000Mbps speeds over  CAT5
       copper  cable,  except  for  the	SysKonnect SK-9D41 which supports only
       1000Mbps	over multimode fiber.  The BCM570x builds upon the  technology
       of the Alteon Tigon II.	It has two R4000 CPU cores and is PCI v2.2 and
       PCI-X v1.0 compliant.  It supports IP, TCP and UDP checksum offload for
       both  receive and transmit, multiple RX and TX DMA rings	for QoS	appli-
       cations,	rules-based receive filtering, and VLAN	 tag  stripping/inser-
       tion  as	 well as a 256-bit multicast hash filter.  Additional features
       may be provided via value-add firmware updates.	The  BCM570x  supports
       TBI  (ten  bit  interface) and GMII transceivers, which means it	can be
       used with either	copper or 1000baseX fiber applications.	 Note  however
       the device only supports	a single speed in TBI mode.

       Most  BCM5700-based  cards  also	 use  the  Broadcom BCM5401 or BCM5411
       10/100/1000 copper gigabit transceivers,	which support  autonegotiation
       of 10, 100 and 1000Mbps modes in	full or	half duplex.

       The  BCM5700,  BCM5701,	BCM5702,  BCM5703,  BCM5704, BCM5714, BCM5717,
       BCM5719,	BCM5720, BCM5780 and BCM57765 also support jumbo frames, which
       can be configured via the interface  MTU	 setting.   Selecting  an  MTU
       larger  than  1500  bytes  with	the ifconfig(8)	utility	configures the
       adapter to receive and transmit jumbo frames.  Using jumbo  frames  can
       greatly	improve	 performance for certain tasks,	such as	file transfers
       and data	streaming.

       The bge 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.	  Only
		    full-duplex	mode is	supported.

       1000baseSX   Set	  1000Mbps   (Gigabit	Ethernet)   operation.	  Both
		    full-duplex	and half-duplex	modes are supported.

       The bge 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 bge driver provides support for various NICs	based on the  Broadcom
       BCM570x family of Gigabit Ethernet controller chips, including the fol-
       lowing:

       o   3Com	3c996-SX (1000baseSX)
       o   3Com	3c996-T	(10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   Apple Thunderbolt Display (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   Apple Thunderbolt to	Gigabit	Ethernet Adapter (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   Dell	PowerEdge 1750 integrated BCM5704C NIC (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   Dell	PowerEdge 2550 integrated BCM5700 NIC (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   Dell	PowerEdge 2650 integrated BCM5703 NIC (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   Dell	PowerEdge R200 integrated BCM5750 NIC (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   Dell	PowerEdge R300 integrated BCM5722 NIC (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   IBM x235 server integrated BCM5703x NIC (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   HP Compaq dc7600 integrated BCM5752 NIC (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   HP ProLiant NC7760 embedded Gigabit NIC (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   HP ProLiant NC7770 PCI-X Gigabit NIC	(10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   HP ProLiant NC7771 PCI-X Gigabit NIC	(10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   HP ProLiant NC7781 embedded PCI-X Gigabit NIC (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   Netgear GA302T (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   SysKonnect SK-9D21 (10/100/1000baseTX)
       o   SysKonnect SK-9D41 (1000baseSX)

LOADER TUNABLES
       The  following tunables can be set at the loader(8) prompt before boot-
       ing the kernel, or stored in loader.conf(5).

       hw.bge.allow_asf
	       Allow the ASF feature for cooperating  with  IPMI.   Can	 cause
	       system  lockup  problems	on a small number of systems.  Enabled
	       by default.

       dev.bge.%d.msi
	       Non-zero	value enables MSI support on  the  Ethernet  hardware.
	       The default value is 1.

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

       dev.bge.%d.forced_collapse
	       Allow collapsing	multiple transmit buffers into a single	buffer
	       to increase transmit performance	with the cost of  CPU  cycles.
	       The default value is 0 to disable transmit buffer collapsing.

       dev.bge.%d.forced_udpcsum
	       Enable  UDP transmit checksum offloading	even if	controller can
	       generate	UDP datagrams with checksum value  0.	UDP  datagrams
	       with  checksum  value  0	 can confuse receiver host as it means
	       sender did not compute UDP checksum.  The default  value	 is  0
	       which disables UDP transmit checksum offloading.	 The interface
	       need  to	be brought down	and up again before a change takes ef-
	       fect.

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

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

       bge%d: couldn't map interrupt  A	fatal  initialization  error  has  oc-
       curred.

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

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

       bge%d:  firmware	 handshake timed out, found 0xffffffff	The device was
       physically disconnected from the	system,	or there is a problem with the
       device causing it to stop responding to the host	it is attached to.

       bge%d: no memory	for jumbo buffers!  The	driver failed to allocate mem-
       ory for jumbo frames during initialization.

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

SEE ALSO
       altq(4),	  arp(4),  miibus(4),  netintro(4),  ng_ether(4),  polling(4),
       vlan(4),	ifconfig(8)

HISTORY
       The bge device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 4.5.

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

BUGS
       Hotplug is not currently	supported in FreeBSD, hence,  Thunderbolt  in-
       terfaces	need to	be connected prior to system power up on Apple systems
       in  order  for  the interface to	be detected.  Also, due	to the lack of
       hotplug support,	Thunderbolt-based interfaces must not be removed while
       the system is up	as the kernel is currently unable to cope with	a  bge
       interface disappearing.

FreeBSD	13.2			August 18, 2017				BGE(4)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | HARDWARE | LOADER TUNABLES | SYSCTL VARIABLES | DIAGNOSTICS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS | BUGS

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