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RE(4)			     Kernel Interfaces Manual			   RE(4)

NAME
     re -- RealTek 8139C+/8169/8169S/8110S PCI Ethernet adapter driver

SYNOPSIS
     device miibus
     device re

DESCRIPTION
     The  re  driver  provides	support  for  various  NICs based on the RealTek
     RTL8139C+, RTL8169, RTL8169S and RTL8110S PCI Ethernet controllers.

     NICs based on the 8139C+ are capable of 10 and 100Mbps speeds over CAT5 ca-
     ble.  NICs based on the 8169, 8169S and 8110S are capable of  10,	100  and
     1000Mbps operation.

     All  NICs supported by the re driver have TCP/IP checksum offload and hard-
     ware VLAN tagging/insertion features, and use a descriptor-based DMA mecha-
     nism.  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 8169S and 8110S 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 embed-
     ded LAN-on-motherboard applications.

     The  8169,  8169S and 8110S also support jumbo frames, which can be config-
     ured 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,  RTL8169S  and	RTL8110S
     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)
     *	 Gigabyte 7N400 Pro2 Integrated Gigabit Ethernet (8110S)
     *	 PLANEX COMMUNICATIONS Inc. GN-1200TC (8169S)
     *	 Xterasys XN-152 10/100/1000 NIC (8169)

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-mas-
     ter 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).

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

     RealTek Semiconductor RTL8139C+, RTL8169, RTL8169S and RTL8110S datasheets,
     http://www.realtek.com.tw/.

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, how-
     ever 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  unmodi-
     fied.   If  the echoed data is corrupt, the driver will print an error mes-
     sage on the console and abort the device attach.  The  user  should  insure
     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 trans-
     mitting jumbo frames up to 7.5K in size.

FreeBSD 5.3		       September 28, 2004			   RE(4)
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