Linux Driver Software: Broadcom NetXtreme II® Network Adapter User Guide
file:///C|/Users/Nalina_N_S/Documents/NetXtremeII/English/linux.htm[9/5/2014 3:45:01 PM]
Patching PCI Files (Optional)
NOTE: The examples used in this procedure refer to the bnx2 driver, but also apply to the bnx2x and bnx2i drivers.
For hardware detection utilities such as Red Hat kudzu to properly identify bnx2 supported devices, a number of files
containing PCI vendor and device information may need to be updated.
Apply the updates by running the scripts provided in the supplemental tar file. For example, on Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
apply the updates by doing the following:
./patch_pcitbl.sh /usr/share/hwdata/pcitable pci.updates
/usr/share/hwdata/pcitable.new bnx2
./patch_pciids.sh /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids pci.updates
/usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids.new
Next, the old files can be backed up and the new files can be renamed for use.
cp /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids /usr/share/hwdata/old.pci.ids
cp /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids.new /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids
cp /usr/share/hwdata/pcitable /usr/share/hwdata/old.pcitable
cp /usr/share/hwdata/pcitable.new /usr/share/hwdata/pcitable
Network Installations
For network installations through NFS, FTP, or HTTP (using a network boot disk or PXE), a driver disk that contains the
bnx2/bnx2x driver may be needed. The driver disk images for the most recent Red Hat and SuSE versions are included. Boot
drivers for other Linux versions can be compiled by modifying the Makefile and the make environment. Further information is
available from the Red Hat website,
http://www.redhat.com
.
Setting Values for Optional Properties
Optional properties exist for the different drivers:
bnx2 Driver
bnx2x Driver
bnx2i Driver
bnx2 Driver
disable_msi
The
disable_msi
optional property can be supplied as a command line argument to the insmod or modprobe command. The
property can also be set in modprobe.conf. See the man page for more information. All other driver settings can be queried
and changed using the ethtool utility. See the ethtool man page for more information. The ethtool settings do not persist
across a reboot or module reload. The ethtool commands can be put in a startup script such as /etc/rc.local to preserve the
settings across a reboot.
NOTE: Some combinations of property values may conflict and result in failures. The driver cannot detect all such
conflicting combinations.
This property is used to disable Message Signal Interrupts (MSI), and the property is valid only on 2.6 kernels that support
MSI. By default, the driver enables MSI if it is supported by the kernel. It runs an interrupt test during initialization to
determine if MSI is working. If the test passes, the driver enables MSI. Otherwise, it uses legacy INTx mode.
insmod bnx2.ko disable_msi=1
or
modprobe bnx2 disable_msi=1
bnx2x Driver
disable_tpa
The
disable_tpa
parameter can be supplied as a command line argument to disable the Transparent Packet Aggregation
