ef (4)

Leading comments

Copyright (c) 1999, Boris Popov
All rights reserved.

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(The comments found at the beginning of the groff file "man4/ef.4freebsd".)

NAME

ef - pseudo-device driver providing support for multiple Ethernet frame types

SYNOPSIS

device ef

DESCRIPTION

The ifconfig pseudo-device driver clones each Ethernet type device with four additional interfaces. Each of them is capable to send or receive only one predefined frame type.

Names for the new interfaces are created by adding a fN suffix to an existing device name. Where N is a device unit which can have one of the following values:

0     interface with an Ethernet_II frame
1     interface with a Novell Ethernet_802.3 frame
2     interface with an Ethernet_802.2 frame
3     interface with an Ethernet_802.2/SNAP frame support.

For example, device ed0 will be populated with four devices: ed0f0 ed0f1 ed0f2 and ed0f3

After that, each device can be configured as usual:

# ifconfig ed0f1 ipx 0x105

This will configure IPX protocol with network number 0x105 and Ethernet_802.3 frame type.

Please note that it is impossible to configure the IPX protocol on the parent ed0 device after the if_ef.ko driver has been loaded.

If the parent interface is not configured for any other protocol (IP for example), subinterfaces will not function. To avoid that, the parent interface should be manually marked as ``up''

# ifconfig ed0 up

EXAMPLES

The ifconfig driver can be loaded via the loader.conf5 file:

if_ef_load="YES"

In this case, ordinary interface configuration commands can be used in the rc.conf5 file:

network_interfaces="ed2 lo0 tun0 ed2f0 ed2f1"

ifconfig_ed2f0_ipx="ipx 0x101"

ifconfig_ed2f1_ipx="ipx 0x102"

DIAGNOSTICS

None.

SEE ALSO

ipx(3), ifconfig(8)

AUTHORS

An Boris Popov Aq bp@FreeBSD.org .

CAVEATS

Avoid to configure the parent Ethernet device for the IPX protocol, after the ifconfig driver is loaded.