xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/if_ntb.4 (revision 076ad2f8)
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26.\" $FreeBSD$
27.\"
28.Dd July 29, 2016
29.Dt IF_NTB 4
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm if_ntb
33.Nd Virtual Ethernet interface for Non-Transparent Bridges
34.Sh SYNOPSIS
35To compile this driver into your kernel,
36place the following lines in your kernel configuration file:
37.Bd -ragged -offset indent
38.Cd "device if_ntb"
39.Ed
40.Pp
41Or, to load the driver as a module at boot, place the following line in
42.Xr loader.conf 5 :
43.Bd -literal -offset indent
44if_ntb_load="YES"
45.Ed
46.Pp
47The following tunables are settable from the
48.Xr loader 8 :
49.Bl -ohang
50.It Va hw.if_ntb.num_queues
51Number of transport queues to use per interface.
52Default is unlimited.
53.El
54.Sh DESCRIPTION
55The
56.Nm
57driver attaches on top of the
58.Xr ntb_transport 4
59driver to utilize its resources to create virtual Ethernet interface between
60the systems.
61Interface capabilities depend on the underlying transport.
62Typical MTU is about 64KB to reduce overhead.
63By default one queue is used, but more may be configured.
64The MAC address for interface is randomly generated.
65.Pp
66The
67.Nm
68driver does not implement any real hardware offload, but since PCIe link is
69protected by CRC32, in some situations it may be possible to save some CPU
70cycles by enabling fake checksum offload on both link sides via setting
71.Cm rxcsum
72and
73.Cm txcsum
74interface options.
75.Sh SEE ALSO
76.Xr ntb_transport 4
77.Sh AUTHORS
78.An -nosplit
79The
80.Nm
81driver was developed by Intel and originally written by
82.An Carl Delsey Aq Mt carl@FreeBSD.org .
83Later improvements were done by
84.An Conrad E. Meyer Aq Mt cem@FreeBSD.org
85and
86.An Alexander Motin Aq Mt mav@FreeBSD.org .
87.Sh BUGS
88Linux supports only one queue per interface, so manual configuration
89may be required for compatibility.
90