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authorMichael Brown <mcb30@etherboot.org>2005-03-08 18:53:11 +0000
committerMichael Brown <mcb30@etherboot.org>2005-03-08 18:53:11 +0000
commit3d6123e69ab879c72ff489afc5bf93ef0b7a94ce (patch)
tree9f3277569153a550fa8d81ebd61bd88f266eb8da /src/README.pixify
downloadipxe-3d6123e69ab879c72ff489afc5bf93ef0b7a94ce.tar.gz
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+This file documents the driver changes needed to support use as part
+of a PXE stack.
+
+PROPER WAY
+==========
+
+1. The probe() routine.
+
+There are three additional fields that need to be filled in the nic
+structure: ioaddr, irqno and irq.
+
+ ioaddr is the base I/O address and seems to be for information only;
+ no use will be made of this value other than displaying it on the
+ screen.
+
+ irqno must be the IRQ number for the NIC. For PCI NICs this can
+ simply be copied from pci->irq.
+
+ irq is a function pointer, like poll and transmit. It must point to
+ the driver's irq() function.
+
+2. The poll() routine.
+
+This must take an additional parameter: "int retrieve". Calling
+poll() with retrieve!=0 should function exactly as before. Calling
+poll() with retrieve==0 indicates that poll() should check for the
+presence of a packet to read, but must *not* read the packet. The
+packet will be read by a subsequent call to poll() with retrieve!=0.
+
+The easiest way to implement this is to insert the line
+ if ( ! retrieve ) return 1;
+between the "is there a packet ready" and the "fetch packet" parts of
+the existing poll() routine.
+
+Care must be taken that a call to poll() with retrieve==0 does not
+clear the NIC's "packet ready" status indicator, otherwise the
+subsequent call to poll() with retrieve!=0 will fail because it will
+think that there is no packet to read.
+
+poll() should also acknowledge and clear the NIC's "packet received"
+interrupt. It does not need to worry about enabling/disabling
+interrupts; this is taken care of by calls to the driver's irq()
+routine.
+
+Etherboot will forcibly regenerate an interrupt if a packet remains
+pending after all interrupts have been acknowledged. You can
+therefore get away with having poll() just acknolwedge and clear all
+NIC interrupts, without particularly worrying about exactly when this
+should be done.
+
+3. The irq() routine.
+
+This is a new routine, with prototype
+ void DRIVER_irq ( struct nic *nic, irq_action_t action );
+"action" takes one of three possible values: ENABLE, DISABLE or FORCE.
+ENABLE and DISABLE mean to enable/disable the NIC's "packet received"
+interrupt. FORCE means that the NIC should be forced to generate a
+fake "packet received" interrupt.
+
+If you are unable to implement FORCE, your NIC will not work when
+being driven via the UNDI interface under heavy network traffic
+conditions. Since Etherboot's UNDI driver (make bin/undi.zpxe) is the
+only program known to use this interface, it probably doesn't really
+matter.
+
+
+QUICK AND DIRTY WAY
+===================
+
+It is possible to use the system timer interrupt (IRQ 0) rather than a
+genuine NIC interrupt. Since there is a constant stream of timer
+interrupts, the net upshot is a whole load of spurious "NIC"
+interrupts that have no effect other than to cause unnecessary PXE API
+calls. It's inefficient but it works.
+
+To achieve this, simply set nic->irqno=0 in probe() and point nic->irq
+to a dummy routine that does nothing. Add the line
+ if ( ! retrieve ) return 1;
+at the beginning of poll(), to prevent the packet being read (and
+discarded) when poll() is called with retrieve==0;
+
+
+UNCONVERTED DRIVERS
+===================
+
+Drivers that have not yet been converted should continue to function
+when not used as part of a PXE stack, although there will be a
+harmless compile-time warning about assignment from an incompatible
+pointer type in the probe() function, since the prototype for the
+poll() function is missing the "int retrieve" parameter.