IX(4) | Kernel Interfaces Manual (VAX) | IX(4) |
The ix interface provides access to a 10 Mb/s Ethernet network through an Interlan Np100 controller used as a link-layer interface.
This interface is unusual in that it requires loading firmware into the controller before it may be used as a network interface. This is accomplished by opening a character special device, and writing data to it. A program to load the image is provided in /usr/src/new/np100. The sequence of commands would be:
# ./npload np.image [/dev/np<board #> if other than np00] # sleep 10 # ifconfig ix0 ...
Each of the host's network addresses is specified at boot time with an SIOCSIFADDR ioctl(2). The ix interface employs the address resolution protocol described in arp(4) to dynamically map between Internet and Ethernet addresses on the local network.
The interface normally tries to use a “trailer” encapsulation to minimize copying data on input and output. The use of trailers is negotiated with ARP. This negotiation may be disabled, on a per-interface basis, by setting the IFF_NOTRAILERS flag with an SIOCSIFFLAGS ioctl(2).
June 5, 1993 | NetBSD 6.1 |