NetWare* Command Line Parameters and Keywords

E1000E Gigabit PCI-Express Server Driver

The following NetWare* keywords are applicable for the E1000E driver.

Parameter Values Default Value Description
Slot 1-valid slot# None This is a standard keyword parameter predefined by NetWare to specify the physical slot of the installed adapter. When multiple adapters reside in a system, the SLOT keyword is used to distinguish which physical adapter is being loaded. If multiple adapters do exist in a system and the command line does not contain the SLOT keyword, the system will build a list of adapter slots and prompt the user to select an adapter to be loaded.
Frame ethernet_802.2 ethernet_802.3 ethernet_snap ethernet_ii ethernet_802.2 Configures the adapter to process the valid NetWare Ethernet frame.
Speed 0, 10, 100 0 On copper-based adapters, forces the line speed to the specified value in Mbps. If this parameter is not specified, or is set to 0, the adapter will auto-negotiate to the best possible link based on link partner. Gig speed can only be achieved by auto-negotiation. This setting has no effect on fiber adapters which are defined to be 1000 Mbps.
ForceDuplex 0 – 2 0 On copper-based adapters, forces the duplex mode. 1 - indicates half duplex, 2 - indicates full duplex. If this parameter is not specified, or is set to 0, the adapter will auto-negotiate to the best possible link.  If it cannot auto-negotiate, it will default to half-duplex. This setting has no effect on fiber adapters which are defined to be full duplex.
Autoneg 0 - 255 0 Controls auto-negotiation on copper-based adapters. When this parameter is used, the Speed and Forceduplex parameters must NOT be specified. This setting has no effect on fiber adapters which are defined to not negotiate speed or duplex to any value but 1000 Mbps, full duplex.
FlowControl 0 - 3 3 Controls the ability of the adapter to advertise flow control capabilities. Default is to allow both TX and RX flow control. 0 is off, 1 is RX, 2 is TX, 3 is both.
Jumbo 0-16128 0 Enables jumbo frames and sets the maximum frame size. Setting this parameter to 0 disables jumbo frames and causes the adapter to use standard 1514 bytes frames.
RxChecksum 0-1 0 When set to ‘1' the driver and hardware can “offload” the calculation of the TCP or UDP checksum values for received TCP or UDP packets, when the stack supports such operation. When set to ‘0' the checksum is calculated normally by the TCP/UDP protocol layers. Non TCP/UDP packets (such as IPX) are not affected by this parameter. This option only works on supported OS versions. Unlike other keywords, this setting is tracked on a per-frame-type basis, and only works on Ethernet II and Ethernet SNAP frame.
WaitForLink 0 -1 0

Controls whether or not the driver will wait for link before finishing initialization.  A value of 1 causes the driver to wait until auto-negotiation is complete before finishing initialization and returning to the command prompt.  A value to 0 will cause the driver to initialize faster, but also may cause it to display incorrect link information when it loads.

Poll 0 - 2 0
(2 for 82547-based adapters & beyond)
Controls whether or not the driver loads in polling mode.0 means no polling (e.g. interrupt mode), 1 means polling is forced on, and 2 means auto-detect. In this case, the driver will query the OS to determine whether or not polling is supported and will enable polling support accordingly. If supported by the OS, polling can decrease CPU usage by the driver when under heavy network load.
Persist 0 - 2 2 Controls whether the driver remains persistent during a hot plug event. Setting this parameter to 0 disables persistency; the driver will always unload during Hot Plug Operations. Setting this parameter to 1 forces the driver to remain persistent during hot plug events. The default value, 2, sets the driver in auto-persistency mode.
TxDescriptors 32-128 96 TxDescriptors tells the hardware where the fragments of a transmit packet are in host memory. A transmit packet can use 1 or more descriptors. Most transmits require 3 or 4 descriptors. Each descriptor is 16 bytes.
RxDescriptors 8-128 (parameter must be in multiples of 8) 64 RxDescriptors tells the hardware where to DMA received packets. For each RX buffer, the driver will also allocate a receive descriptor. Each descriptor is 16 bytes and each buffer is 2048 bytes.
PMEDisable 0-1 0 Enable/Disable the waking of the system by asserting PME when a Magic Packet is received while powered down.
CoalesceBuffers 32-128 96 Coalesce Buffers are used to copy fragments of a transmit packet into contiguous memory before assigning them a transmit descriptor. This reduces the number of transmit descriptors required for each packet transmission.

Last modified on 11/04/09 9:19a Revision 9