What's New in Solaris Express

x86: PCI Express Support on x86 Systems

This device management feature is new in the Solaris Express 1/06 release.

This Solaris release provides support for the PCI Express (PCIe) interconnect. PCIe is designed to connect peripheral devices to desktop, enterprise, mobile, communication, and embedded applications.

The PCIe interconnect is an industry-standard, high-performance, serial I/O bus. For details on PCIe technology, go to the following site:

http://www.pcisig.com

The PCIe software provides the following features in this Solaris release:

The following cfgadm example output displays the hotpluggable PCIe devices on an x86 system. Note that the display below may differ from platform to platform. Check your hardware platform guide for the correct cfgadm syntax.


# cfgadm pci
Ap_Id     Type         Receptacle   Occupant     Condition
pcie1     unknown      empty        unconfigured unknown
pcie2     unknown      empty        unconfigured unknown
pcie3     unknown      empty        unconfigured unknown
pcie4     etherne/hp   connected    configured   ok
pcie5     pci-pci/hp   connected    configured   ok
pcie6     unknown      disconnected unconfigured unknown

The administrative model for hotplugging PCIe peripherals is the same as for PCI peripherals, which uses the cfgadm command.

For more information, see the cfgadm_pci(1M) man page and the System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems. Check your hardware platform guide to ensure that PCIe and PCIe hotplug support is provided on your system. In addition, carefully review the instructions for physically inserting or removing adapters on your system. And, review the semantics of device auto-configuration, if applicable.