NFE(4)

NAME
nfe - NVIDIA nForce MCP 10/100/Gigabit Ethernet driver

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

device miibus
device nfe

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

    if_nfe_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION
The nfe driver supports PCI Ethernet adapters based on the NVIDIA nForce Media and Communications Processors (MCP), such as the nForce, nForce 2, nForce 3, CK804, MCP04, MCP51, MCP55, MCP61, MCP65, MCP67, MCP73, MCP77 and MCP79 Ethernet controller chips.

The nfe driver supports the following media types:

autoselect
    Enable autoselection of the media type and options.
10baseT
    Set 10Mbps operation.
100baseTX
    Set 100Mbps (Fast Ethernet) operation.
1000baseT
    Set 1000Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet) operation (recent models only).

  MIB Variables and Loader Tunables
The following per-interface variables are implemented in the dev.nfe.X branch of the sysctl(3) MIB. Loader tunables with the same names, but using the prefix hw.nfe are also implemented, they apply to all nfe interfaces in system and can be set in loader.conf(5).

imtimer
    Interrupt moderation time (unit: microseconds). The default value is -125. A value of 0 means disabled. A negative value, -Y, means hardware timer simulated interrupt moderation, the simulated interrupt moderation timer will be set to Y. A positive valye, Y, means hardware timer only interrupt moderation, hardware timer will be set to Y. Value can be tuned when the interface is running. Positive values in the range 64-128 seems to be a reasonable.

rx_ring_count
    RX ring count. sysctl node is read-only. The default value is 128. With heavier interrupt moderation (eg. imtimer=-250), it is recommended to increase rx_ring_count (eg. to 512).

tx_ring_count
    TX ring count. sysctl node is read-only. The default value is 256.

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

SEE ALSO
arp(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), miibus(4), netintro(4), pci(4), polling(4), vlan(4), loader.conf(5), ifconfig(8)

HISTORY
The nfe device driver first appeared in OpenBSD 3.9 and was imported into DragonFly 1.7.

AUTHORS
-nosplit The nfe driver was written by Jonathan Gray <jsg@openbsd.org> and Damien Bergamini <damien@openbsd.org>. It was ported to DragonFly by Sepherosa Ziehau <sepherosa@gmail.com>.

CAVEATS
NVIDIA refuse to release any documentation on their products.