NAME

ei − Solbourne 10MB Ethernet IOASIC interface

CONFIG

device ei0 at kbio ? csr ? priority 3

The synopsis line above specifies an Ethernet controller on a Solbourne IOBus adaptor (System Board). 

DESCRIPTION

The ei interface provides access to a 10 Mb/s Ethernet network through the AMD LANCE (Local Area Network Controller for Ethernet) Am7990 chip.  For a general description of network interfaces see if(4N). 

SEE ALSO

if(4N), kb(4S), tty_compact(4)

DIAGNOSTICS

ei%d is reserved for remote debugging 
The interface is present but being used exclusively for debugging.

ei%d: out of mbufs: output packet dropped 
The driver has run out of memory to use to buffer packets on output. The packet being transmitted at the time of occurrence is lost. This error is usually symptomatic of trouble elsewhere in the kernel.

ei%d: out of tmds - packet dropped 
The driver has run out of transmit message descriptors needed to queue a packet to the LANCE and discarded the packet.  This error usually indicates that the upper protocol layers are generating packets faster than the driver can transmit them on the ethernet and is usually self-correcting. 

ei%d: trailer error 
An incoming packet claimed to have a trailing header but did not.

ei%d: RINT with buffer owned by chip 
The LANCE has generated a receive interrupt but the driver finds no packets have been received.  This causes the driver to reinitialize the chip. 

ei%d: runt packet 
An incoming packet’s size was below the Ethernet minimum transmission size.

ei%d: Receive: overflow error 
Indicates that the receiver has lost all or part of an incoming packet due to an inability to store the packet in a memory buffer before the LANCE internal silo overflowed. 

ei%d: Receive: BUFF set in rmd 
This error “should never happen,” as it occurs only in conjunction with a LANCE feature that the driver does not use. 

ei%d: Receive: framing error 
The driver has received a packet containing a noninteger multiple of eight bits and there was a CRC error.

ei%d: Receive: crc error 
The driver has received a packet with an incorrect checksum field.

ei%d: Receive: STP in rmd cleared 
The driver has received a packet that straddles multiple receive buffers and therefore consumes more than one of the LANCE chip’s receive descriptors.  Provided that all stations on the Ethernet are operating according to the Ethernet specification, this error “should never happen,” since the driver allocates its receive buffers to be large enough to hold packets of the largest permitted size.  Most likely, some other station on the net is transmitting packets whose lengths exceed the maximum permitted for Ethernet. 

ei%d: Receive: ENP in rmd cleared 
The driver has received a packet that straddles multiple receive buffers and therefore consumes more than one of the LANCE chip’s receive descriptors.  Provided that all stations on the Ethernet are operating according to the Ethernet specification, this error “should never happen,” since the driver allocates its receive buffers to be large enough to hold packets of the largest permitted size.  The most likely cause of the message is that some other station on the net is transmitting packets whose lengths exceed the maximum permitted for Ethernet. 

ei%d: Transmit: BUFF set in tmd 
Excessive bus contention has prevented the LANCE chip from gathering packet contents quickly enough to sustain the packet’s transmission over the Ethernet.  The affected packet is lost. 

ei%d: Transmit underflow 
The transmitter has truncated a packet due to data late from memory.

ei%d: Transmit late collision −  Net problem? 
A packet collision has occurred after the channel’s slot time has elapsed. This error usually indicates faulty hardware elsewhere on the net.

ei%d: No carrier − transceiver cable problem? 
The LANCE chip has lost input to its carrier detect pin while trying to transmit a packet. 

ei%d: Transmit retried more than 16 times − net jammed 
Network activity has become so intense that sixteen successive transmission attempts failed, the LANCE chip gave up on the current packet. 

ei%d: missed packet 
The driver has dropped an incoming packet because it had no buffer space for it.

ei%d: Babble error − sent a packet longer than the maximum length 
While transmitting a packet, the LANCE chip has noticed that the packet’s length exceeds the maximum allowed for Ethernet (1519 bytes).  This error indicates a kernel bug. 

ei%d: Memory Error! 
The LANCE chip timed out while trying to acquire the bus for a DVMA transfer. 

ei%d: Reception stopped 
Because of some other error, the receive section of the LANCE chip shut down and had to be reinitialized. 

ei%d: Transmission stopped 
Because of some other error, the transmit section of the LANCE chip shut down and had to be reinitialized. 

Solbourne Computer, Inc.  —  15 July 1990