200 lines
6.0 KiB
Plaintext
200 lines
6.0 KiB
Plaintext
Linux Base Driver for 10 Gigabit PCI Express Intel(R) Network Connection
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========================================================================
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March 10, 2009
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Contents
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========
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- In This Release
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- Identifying Your Adapter
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- Building and Installation
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- Additional Configurations
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- Support
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In This Release
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===============
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This file describes the ixgbe Linux Base Driver for the 10 Gigabit PCI
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Express Intel(R) Network Connection. This driver includes support for
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Itanium(R)2-based systems.
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For questions related to hardware requirements, refer to the documentation
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supplied with your 10 Gigabit adapter. All hardware requirements listed apply
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to use with Linux.
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The following features are available in this kernel:
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- Native VLANs
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- Channel Bonding (teaming)
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- SNMP
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- Generic Receive Offload
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- Data Center Bridging
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Channel Bonding documentation can be found in the Linux kernel source:
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/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt
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Ethtool, lspci, and ifconfig can be used to display device and driver
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specific information.
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Identifying Your Adapter
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========================
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This driver supports devices based on the 82598 controller and the 82599
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controller.
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For specific information on identifying which adapter you have, please visit:
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http://support.intel.com/support/network/sb/CS-008441.htm
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Building and Installation
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=========================
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select m for "Intel(R) 10GbE PCI Express adapters support" located at:
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Location:
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-> Device Drivers
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-> Network device support (NETDEVICES [=y])
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-> Ethernet (10000 Mbit) (NETDEV_10000 [=y])
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1. make modules & make modules_install
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2. Load the module:
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# modprobe ixgbe
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The insmod command can be used if the full
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path to the driver module is specified. For example:
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insmod /lib/modules/<KERNEL VERSION>/kernel/drivers/net/ixgbe/ixgbe.ko
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With 2.6 based kernels also make sure that older ixgbe drivers are
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removed from the kernel, before loading the new module:
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rmmod ixgbe; modprobe ixgbe
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3. Assign an IP address to the interface by entering the following, where
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x is the interface number:
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ifconfig ethx <IP_address>
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4. Verify that the interface works. Enter the following, where <IP_address>
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is the IP address for another machine on the same subnet as the interface
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that is being tested:
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ping <IP_address>
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Additional Configurations
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=========================
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Viewing Link Messages
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---------------------
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Link messages will not be displayed to the console if the distribution is
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restricting system messages. In order to see network driver link messages on
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your console, set dmesg to eight by entering the following:
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dmesg -n 8
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NOTE: This setting is not saved across reboots.
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Jumbo Frames
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------------
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The driver supports Jumbo Frames for all adapters. Jumbo Frames support is
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enabled by changing the MTU to a value larger than the default of 1500.
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The maximum value for the MTU is 16110. Use the ifconfig command to
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increase the MTU size. For example:
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ifconfig ethx mtu 9000 up
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The maximum MTU setting for Jumbo Frames is 16110. This value coincides
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with the maximum Jumbo Frames size of 16128.
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Generic Receive Offload, aka GRO
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--------------------------------
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The driver supports the in-kernel software implementation of GRO. GRO has
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shown that by coalescing Rx traffic into larger chunks of data, CPU
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utilization can be significantly reduced when under large Rx load. GRO is an
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evolution of the previously-used LRO interface. GRO is able to coalesce
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other protocols besides TCP. It's also safe to use with configurations that
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are problematic for LRO, namely bridging and iSCSI.
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GRO is enabled by default in the driver. Future versions of ethtool will
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support disabling and re-enabling GRO on the fly.
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Data Center Bridging, aka DCB
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-----------------------------
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DCB is a configuration Quality of Service implementation in hardware.
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It uses the VLAN priority tag (802.1p) to filter traffic. That means
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that there are 8 different priorities that traffic can be filtered into.
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It also enables priority flow control which can limit or eliminate the
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number of dropped packets during network stress. Bandwidth can be
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allocated to each of these priorities, which is enforced at the hardware
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level.
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To enable DCB support in ixgbe, you must enable the DCB netlink layer to
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allow the userspace tools (see below) to communicate with the driver.
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This can be found in the kernel configuration here:
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-> Networking support
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-> Networking options
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-> Data Center Bridging support
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Once this is selected, DCB support must be selected for ixgbe. This can
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be found here:
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-> Device Drivers
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-> Network device support (NETDEVICES [=y])
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-> Ethernet (10000 Mbit) (NETDEV_10000 [=y])
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-> Intel(R) 10GbE PCI Express adapters support
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-> Data Center Bridging (DCB) Support
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After these options are selected, you must rebuild your kernel and your
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modules.
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In order to use DCB, userspace tools must be downloaded and installed.
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The dcbd tools can be found at:
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http://e1000.sf.net
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Ethtool
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-------
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The driver utilizes the ethtool interface for driver configuration and
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diagnostics, as well as displaying statistical information. Ethtool
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version 3.0 or later is required for this functionality.
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The latest release of ethtool can be found from
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/gkernel.
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NAPI
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----
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NAPI (Rx polling mode) is supported in the ixgbe driver. NAPI is enabled
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by default in the driver.
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See www.cyberus.ca/~hadi/usenix-paper.tgz for more information on NAPI.
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Support
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=======
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For general information, go to the Intel support website at:
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http://support.intel.com
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or the Intel Wired Networking project hosted by Sourceforge at:
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http://e1000.sourceforge.net
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If an issue is identified with the released source code on the supported
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kernel with a supported adapter, email the specific information related
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to the issue to e1000-devel@lists.sf.net
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