ACE(4) BSD/tahoe Kernel Interfaces Manual ACE(4)NAMEace — ACC 10 Mb/s Ethernet interface
SYNOPSIS
device ace0 at vba? csr 0xffff0000 flags 0xfff80000 vector acecint
acerint
DESCRIPTION
The ace interface provides access to a 10 Mb/s Ethernet network through
an ACC controller.
The hardware has 32 kilobytes of dual-ported memory on the VERSAbus.
This memory is used for internal buffering by the board, and the inter‐
face code reads the buffer contents directly through the VERSAbus. The
address of this memory is given in the flags field in the configuration
file.
Each of the host's network addresses is specified at boot time with an
SIOCSIFADDR ioctl(2). The ace interface employs the address resolution
protocol described in arp(4) to dynamically map between Internet and Eth‐
ernet 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 set‐
ting the IFF_NOTRAILERS flag with an SIOCSIFFLAGS ioctl.
The device implements an exponential backoff algorithm when notified of a
collision on the cable. This algorithm utilizes a table of random num‐
bers setup by the system at boot time. The delay is done in the con‐
troller.
DIAGNOSTICS
ace%d: stray xmit interrupt, xnct %d. An unexpected transmission com‐
plete interrupt was received; the interrupt is ignored.
ace%d: can't handle af%d. The interface was handed a message with
addresses formatted in an unsuitable address family; the packet was
dropped.
SEE ALSOintro(4), inet(4), arp(4)HISTORY
The ace driver appeared in 4.3BSD-Tahoe.
BUGS
The hardware is not capable of talking to itself. The software imple‐
ments local sending and broadcast by sending such packets to the loop
interface. This is a kludge.
The device doesn't autoconfigure its interrupt vector; it is set at 0x90
+ eight times the unit number.
4.2 Berkeley Distribution June 5, 1993 4.2 Berkeley Distribution