Installing and Setting Up the Driver

C H A P T E R 2

This chapter explains how to download and install the nxge driver. The nxge gigabit Ethernet driver (nxge(7D)) is a multi-threaded, loadable, clonable, GLD-based STREAMS driver. The nxge driver is managed by the dladm(1M) command line utility, which allows VLANs to be defined on top of nxge instances and for nxge instances to be aggregated. See the dladm(1M) man page for more details on configuring the data-link interfaces and link aggregations.

This chapter contains the following sections:

Downloading and Installing the Driver on Oracle Solaris (SPARC or x86 Platform)

Downloading and Installing the Driver on a Linux PlatformAugust 2012

Downloading and Installing the Driver on Oracle Solaris (SPARC or x86 Platform)

If your system uses the Oracle Solaris SPARC or x86 operating system you must download and install the nxge device driver for Oracle Solaris platforms.

To Download the Driver on an Oracle Solaris Platform

1. Locate and download the nxge device driver software:

a. Go to:

https://support.oracle.com

b. Sign in or register.

c. Select the Patches & Updates tab.

d. In the Patch Name field, enter the following:

11847387, 10264309

e. Click Search.

f. Click on each patch name to get to the Patch page.

g. Click on the Patch download link and save the zipped files to your environment.

Ensure that you repeat steps as needed to download both patch files.

2. In your environment where you saved the patch files, unzip the files:

# unzip 10264309* 
# unzip 1184738*

a. For SPARC systems, change to the following directory:

# cd 10_GigabitEthernet/Solaris_10/sparc/Packages

b. For x86 systems:

# cd 10_GigabitEthernet/Solaris_10/i386/Packages

3. For SPARC systems, determine the processor architecture of your system:

# uname -m

For sun4v systems, install the software packages by typing the following at the command line:

# /usr/sbin/pkgadd -d . SUNWnxge.v SUNWnxgem

For sun4u systems, install the software packages by typing the following at the command line:

# /usr/sbin/pkgadd -d . SUNWnxge.u SUNWnxgme

4. For x86 systems, install the software packages by typing the following at the command line:

# /usr/sbin/pkgadd -d

A menu similar to the following displays:

The following packages are available:
 
1 SUNWnxge Sun PCI-E 10G/1G Ethernet Adapter Driver (i386)
1.0,REV=2006.12.05.10.0 
 
Select package(s) you wish to process (or ’all’ to process
all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]:

5. Select the packages you want to install:

Press Return or type all to accept the default and install all packages.

Type the specific numbers, separated by a space, if you prefer not to install any optional packages.

6. Verify that the nxge driver is installed on the system:

Sun PCI-E 10G/1G Ethernet Adapter Driver(i386)
1.0,REV=2006.12.05.10.0 Copyright 2006 Sun Microsystems,
Inc.  All rights reserved.  Use is subject to license terms.
## Executing checkinstall script.  Using as the package base directory.  
## Processing package information.  
## Processing system information. 
4 package pathnames are already properly installed.  
## Verifying package dependencies.  
## Verifying disk space requirements.  
## Checking for conflicts with packages already installed.  
## Checking for setuid/setgid programs.  This package contains
scripts which will be executed with super-user permission
during the process of installing this package.  
 
Do you want to continue with the installation of [y,n,?]  y 
 
Installing Sun PCI-E 10G/1G Ethernet Adapter Driver as 
 
## Installing part 1 of 1.  
 
/kernel/drv/amd64/nxge [ verifying class ] 
 
# Executing postinstall script.  
# Installation of was successful.

To Remove the Driver from an Oracle Solaris Platform

1. To discover the driver packages run the pkginfo command:

# pkginfo | grep SUNWnxge
SUNWnxge 		 Sun PCI-E 10G/1G Ethernet Adapter Driver

2. To remove the driver packages run the pkgrm command:

# pkgrm SUNWnxge plus any other packages from the previous command

Downloading and Installing the Driver on a Linux Platform

1. Login to your system.

2. Locate and download the nxge device driver software:

a. Go to:

http://supporthtml.oracle.com

b. Sign in or register.

c. Select the Patches & Updates tab.

d. In the Patch Name field, enter the following:

11847387, 10264309

e. Click Search.

f. Click on each patch name to get to the Patch page.

g. Click on the Patch download link and save the zipped files to your environment.

3. In your environment where you saved the patch files, unzip the files.

4. Discover the network interfaces before adding the package by using the ifconfig -a command:

# ifconfig -a |grep eth
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:20:F1:DC
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:20:F1:DD
eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:20:F1:DE
eth3      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:20:F1:DF

5. Use the rpm tool to install the driver on SuSe and RedHat Linux.

# rpm -ivh /tmp/RHEL4U4-large/RPMS/x86_64/nxge-1.0-1.x86_64.rpm
Preparing...             ###########################################
1:nxge                   ###########################################

Note - In RHEL5.0 and later releases, the driver is packaged in the kmod driver binary package format. This packaging allows forward and backward driver binary compatibility within the same flavors of RHEL5 releases. Driver packages nxge version 2.0.0 and later are not compatible with the earlier nxge-1.x-x releases. To upgrade from 1.x-x to 2.x.x rpm package, it is necessary to remove nxge-1.x-x package before installing the 2.x.x package.

The RHEL5 nxge 2.x.x kmod package contains two separate packages: One for the driver and another one for applications like nxge_config. You must install both of the following packages:

kmod-nxge-rhel-2.0-1.x86_64.rpm   (driver binary package)
nxge-apps-rhel-2.0-1.x86_64.rpm (application package)

To install the complete package, enter the following:

# rpm -ivh nxge-apps-rhel-2.0-1.x86_64.rpm kmod-nxge-rhel-2.0-1.x86_64.rpm

To ensure that the driver is loaded after the rpm installation, enter the following:

# modprobe nxge

6. Verify the new network interface instances corresponding to the Sun Dual 10 GbE XFP PCI Express Card:

# ifconfig -a |grep eth
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:20:F1:DC
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:20:F1:DD
eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:20:F1:DE
eth3      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:20:F1:DF
eth4      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:6C:78:E8 
eth5      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:6C:78:E9

The Sun Dual 10 GbE XFP PCI Express Card instances, eth4 and eth5, are shown in bold italics.

7. Add the nxge interfaces to the /etc/modules.conf file to automatically load the driver after system reboot:

alias eth4 nxge
alias eth5 nxge

8. Use the ethtool command to check the parameter configurations that apply to the nxge driver.

(For 10G)
# ethtool -i eth4
driver: nxge
version: 2.0.1
firmware-version:  2XGF PXE1.47 FCode 3.9 07/04/24
bus-info: 0000:84:00.0
 
(Equivalent for 1G)
# ethtool -i eth4
driver: nxge
version: 2.0.1
firmware-version: QGC PXE1.47 FCode 3.9 07/04/24
bus-info: 0000:02:00.2

To Remove the Driver From a Linux Platform

To remove the driver packages from a Linux Platform use the rpm -e command:

# rpm -e nxge-1.0-1