Cannot get ethernet off the ground

[Roland Smith]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 07:39:05AM -0500, William Gordon Rutherdale wrote:
> Is there an easy way to tell whether the new 7.1 release will officially 
> support my hardware?  I looked at this url:  
> http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.1R/relnotes.html#PROC

Look at this manual page for the re(4) driver: [http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=re&apropos=0&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+7.1-RELEASE&format=html]

This seems to match what you see with pciconf:
> >> none2 at pci0:2:0:0: class=0x020000 card=0x2abf103c chip=0x816810ec
> >> rev=0x02 hdr=0x00
> >>     vendor          = 'Realtek Semiconductor'
> >>     device          = 'RTL 8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC'
> >>     class           = network
> >>     subclass        = ethernet

This driver is part of the GENERIC kernel. So it should be recognized by
7.1-RELEASE. Try downloading the bootonly CD-image and booting from it.

I've used realtek devices in the past (cheap rl(4) based cards) but
wasn't really impressed. One one of those cards, download speed was OK,
but upload maxed out @ 200 kB/s. :-(

Better get a card based on an Intel PRO/100 chip [fxp(4) driver] or 3COM
3c905 [xl(4) driver]. If you need gigabit, try Intel PRO/1000 [em(4)].

> and cannot easily tell from there.  There must be something in the boot 
> code (or drivers) that looks at the signature (maybe device name and 
> manufacturer) and decides whether it knows the card. 

Drivers try to probe for the card. If they get a good reaction, the
device is enabled.
 
> If I could find either documentation or some configuration or source 
> code file to look at, then I could have an idea before actually trying 
> it whether freebsd 7.1 actually will recognise this driver on its own.

Look at /usr/src/sys/dev/re/if_re.c.

Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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