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.TH 3C 4
.SH NAME
3c0 \- Driver for the 3COM 3C509 ISA Ethernet controller
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
3c509
	/bootopts: 3c0=12,0x320,,0x80
	/dev/3c0 - major: 9 minor: 2
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The \fB3c0\fP 
device refers to the ELKS driver for the 3Com 3C509 10Mbps 
Ethernet interface (aka NIC) running
on the PC ISA 8 or 16 bit bus. The 
\fB3C509\fP
is a 16 bit interface but may also be used in systems with 
the original PC/XT 8 bit ISA bus. However, this functionality is currently not implemented in 
the ELKS driver.
.PP
The 
.B 3C509
is a plug-and-play 
.I (PnP)
interface which means that the configuration specified at boot time does not have to match the
internal settings in the NIC. This driver makes limited use of this
opportunity - see the CONFIGURATION section below.
.PP
The 
.B 3C509B
which is the most common variant,
has a fixed 8K byte internal packet buffer shared by transmit and receive. The earlier model 
(without the B) has 4k bytes of buffer RAM. Since the buffer is accessed as a FIFO, there is 
no configuration needed and the driver supports whatever buffer the NIC has.
.PP
When hit by heavy incoming traffic, the NIC will experience buffer overruns and the driver will 
emit frequent error messages to that effect if the verbose flag is set (see below). 
Packets will be discarded, but in 
most cases TCP will recover and continue.
.SH CONFIGURATION
The default configuration for the interface is set in the
.I ports.h 
file in the ELKS source tree, see the FILES section below. These settings may conveniently
be overridden at boot-time via the
.I /bootopts
file using the syntax shown in the SYNOPSIS section above.
.PP
The first parameter is the IRQ (decimal), 
the second is the base I/O port address (in hexadecimal), the third is always omitted for this 
interface and the fourth is the 
\fIflag\fP
field described below. Any of the parameters may be omitted but the commas must be kept, in which 
case the defaults from
.I ports.h
will be used.
.PP
Because of its plug-and-play capability, the
.B 3C509
will use the configuration specified by ELKS regardless of the internal settings in the interface.
Those
settings will be reported for informational purposes in the boot message if verbose mode is set, 
see below.
.SH FLAGS
The 
.I flags 
part of the configuration line enables/disables various interface and driver parameters at boot time.
These parameters vary from one interface type/vendor to the next, so make sure to 
look at the correct man page to get correct information.
.PP
The defaults are:
.nf
	Bus width:	16 bit only
	Buffer size:	8k
	Verbose msgs:	Off
	Network connection: BNC or TP (autoswitching)
.fi
.PP
As distributed, the settings in the 
.I /bootopts
file set the verbose flag (0x80) in the flags field to aid debugging.
.PP
.nf
	NAME		VALUE	FUNCTION
	ETHF_USE_AUI	0x40	Use the AUI network connection
	ETHF_VERBOSE    0x80    Turn on console error messages
.fi

.SH TROUBLESHOOTING
When the \fB3c0\fP
interface has been configured into the running kernel via
\fImenuconfig\fP,
a boot message will indicate whether the configuration works or not. The following 
message indicates success:
.PP
.nf
eth: 3c0 at 0x300, irq 15, (3c509) MAC 00:a0:24:67:7f:b1 (HWconf: 330/9), flags 0x80
.fi
.PP
The interface was found at the specified I/O address, the displayed MAC (Ethernet) address 
was found and set. The HWconf values are the default settings in the NIC itself, as
discussed above.
.PP
The interrupt line (IRQ) is reported but not tested or activated at this point. If the interface does 
not seem to work, the IRQ may be wrong.  
also, be aware that using the AUI connection requires a special setting in the flags field.
.PP
If the interface is reported as 'not found' it is likely that the I/O address is wrong. 
.PP
.nf
eth: 3c0 at 0x300, irq 15 not found
.fi
.PP
Since the NIC has PnP capability, the provided IRQ value will always be used. If this does not work,
the reason is most likely a collision: The IRQ is already assigned to an ISA interface.
.PP
If the interface seems to work but emit error messages while transferring data, make sure you set 
the
.I verbose
flag in the 
.I /bootopts 
configuration to get as much detail as possible. Refer to the FLAGS and ERROR MESSAGES sections
for details.
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
The driver will emit the following error messages, some of them only if the verbose flag has been set.
.PP
.nf
\fIel3: no available ID port found\fR
.fi
A working PnP port could not be located and the interface cannot be configured. This should not
happen and may indicate either a bus level hardware problem or a NIC malfunction. It is 
also possible there is a 'PnP collision' with some other interface, in particular a SoundBlaster card.
To diagnose, remove other cards and try again.
.PP
.nf
\fI3c0: Rcv oflow (0x%x), keep %d\fR
.fi
The interface was unable to handle the amount of incoming traffic and had to discard packets.
Since incoming packets are transferred directly from the interface buffer to user space,
with no buffering by the operating system, this may happen frequently when under heavy load.
The first number is a status code from the interface, the second is not used for this 
type of interface and is always 0.
.PP
.nf
\fI3c0: TX-error, status 0x%x\fR
.fi
A link level error happened during transmit. This may 
indicate a physical problem with the network. In rare cases it may be an indication that
the network is really busy. Remember that these interfaces are 10Mbps, more often than 
not connected to a switch carrying Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet traffic. The broadcast
traffic on such segments may have bursts that the old interfaces have a hard time keeping up with.
This message is informational.
.PP
.nf
\fIne0: RX-error, status 0x%x\fR
.fi
A link level error happened during receive and the packet was discarded.
This message is informational and will be suppressed if the verbose flag is off.
.PP
.nf
\fI3c0: NIC under-/overrun, status 0x%x\fR
.fi
This message indicates and unspecified transmit or receive error which in most 
cases mean a NIC failure, possibly overheating. An extremely rare situation which will 
most definitely be of interest to the developers.
.PP
.nf
\fIeth: Infinite loop in interrupt, status %4.4x.\fR
.fi
Another very rare occurrence, most likely indicating a driver error. If this happens, the NIC will
be shut down and needs to be restarted either by a
.I net stop; net start
command sequence or by rebooting the system.
.PP
.nf
\fI3c509: Error in read (%04x), buffer cleared\fR
.fi
Reading data from the NIC FIFO failed and the entire read buffer was cleared. If this problem
persists, the NIC has severe hardware problems.

.SH IOCTLs
The driver supports the following IOCTL calls:
.PP
.nf
	NAME		     PARAMETER		PURPOSE
	IOCTL_ETH_ADDR_GET   char[6]		Get MAC address
	IOCTL_ETH_GETSTAT    struct netif_stat	Get stats from device
.fi
.SH BUGS
The AUI setting is untested. Also, the driver has not been tested with the older (4K buffer) interface.
.SH FILES
/dev/3c0, /bootopts, /etc/net.cfg, elks/include/arch/ports.h
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR ktcp (8),
.BR wd0 (4),
.BR ne0 (4),
.BR net (1).
.SH AUTHOR
Helge Skrivervik, helge@skrivervik.com
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