Technical data

nei(7D) Devices SunOS 5.5
NAME nei − Novell NE2000, NE2000plus Ethernet device Driver
SYNOPSIS /dev/nei
AVAILABILITY x86
DESCRIPTION The nei Ethernet driver is a multi-threaded, loadable, clonable, STREAMS hardware
driver supporting the connectionless Data Link Provider Interface, dlpi(7P), over Novell
NE2000 and NE2000plus controllers. The nei driver provides basic support for the
NE2000 and NE2000plus hardware. Functions include chip initialization,frame transmit
and receive, multicast and “promiscuous” support, and error recovery and reporting.
Multiple NE2000 and NE2000plus controllers installed within the system are supported
by the driver.
APPLICATION
PROGRAMMING
INTERFACE
The cloning, character-special device /dev/nei is used to access all NE2000 series devices
installed within the system.
nei and DLPI The nei driver is a “style 2” Data Link Service provider. All M_PROTO and M_PCPROTO
type messages are interpreted as DLPI primitives. Valid DLPI primitives are defined in
<sys/dlpi.h>. An explicit DL_ATTACH_REQ message by the user is required to associate
the opened stream with a particular device (ppa). The ppa ID is interpreted as an
unsigned long integer and indicates the corresponding device instance (unit) number.
The unit numbers are assigned sequentially to each board found. The search order is
determined by the order defined in the nei.conf file. An error (DL_ERROR_ACK)is
returned by the driver if the ppa field value does not correspond to a valid device
instance number for this system. The device is initializedon first attach and de-initialized
(stopped) on last detach.
The values returned by the driver in theDL_INFO_ACK primitive in response to the
DL_INFO_REQ from the user are as follows:
The maximum Service Data Unit (SDU)is1500 (ETHERMTU - defined in
<sys/ethernet.h>).
The minimumSDU is 0. The driver will pad to the mandatory 60-octet
minimum packet size.
The dlsap address length is 8.
The Media Access Control (MAC) type is DL_ETHER.
The sap length value is −2, meaning the physical address component is fol-
lowed immediately by a 2-byte sap component within the DLSAP address.
The service mode is DL_CLDLS.
No optional quality of service (QOS) support is included at present, so theQOS
fields are 0.
The provider style isDL_STYLE2.
The version isDL_VERSION_2.
7D-228 modified 10 Feb 1995