Limiting the number of probed interfaces?

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Hello!

On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 08:49:40AM -0400, Michael Proto wrote:

> > Is there a way to limit the number of probed entities for
> > a certain pci device class to, say, 1 in my case?
> > I'd like to use bge0 for FreeBSD but the kernel should leave
> > everything else that might be a bge interface alone.
> 
> Would the following in /boot/device.hints achieve what you are after?
> 
> hint.bge.1.disabled="1"
> hint.bge.2.disabled="1"

That would be the feature I am seeking. Unfortunately this
had no effect. I already tried. The latest statement I was able
to find via Google claimed, that for FBSD 5.2 "you cannot disable
PCI devices other than completely removing the driver".
I don't know if this has changed since then.

According to Fujitsu Siemens support they use something called UMP,
'Universal Management Port', to send packets to the management
processor via a shared Ethernet PHY.

In theory the OS should be able to use the NIC at the same time
as the management processor. You can use either a true shared
LAN for both or 802.1q to get both interfaces into seperate
broadcast domains.

The problem with FreeBSD seems to be that bge_reset() which
is called by bge_attach() clears the UMP configuration area.
According to them Linux does not do this.

Since I like a dedicated physical management interface much
better, anyway, my final solution is rather simple:

In the BIOS setup program disable the LAN port on that interface
while keeping the setting for "Management LAN" at "Enabled".

This has the desired effect: remote management works and FreeBSD
doesn't see the port at all. Costs you a NIC, though ;-)

Thanks,
Patrick
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