ln(7)
Name
ln − Lance Ethernet interface
Syntax
device ln0 at ibus? vector lnintr
Description
The ln interface provides access to a 10 Mb/s Ethernet network through the Lance controller.
The host’s Internet address is specified at boot time with an SIOCSIFADDR ioctl. The ln interface employs the address resolution protocol described in arp() to map dynamically between Internet and Ethernet addresses on the local network.
The interface normally tries to use a trailer encapsulation to minimize copying data on input and output. This can be disabled for an interface by setting the IFF_NOTRAILERS flag with an SIOCSIFFLAGS ioctl. Trailers are only used for packets destined for Internet hosts.
The SIOCSPHYSADDR ioctl can be used to change the physical address of the Lance. The SIOCRPHYSADDR ioctl can be used to read the physical address of the Lance.
The SIOCADDMULTI and SIOCDELMULTI ioctls can be used to add or delete multicast addresses. The Lance recognizes a maximum of 12 multicast addresses.
The SIOCRDCTRS and SIOCRDZCTRS ioctls can be used to read or “read and clear” the Ethernet driver counters. The argument to these two ioctls is a pointer to a counter structure, ctrreq, found in <net/if.h>.
The SIOCENABLBACK and SIOCDISABLBACK ioctls can be used to enable and disable the interface loopback mode respectively.
Diagnostics
The diagnostic error messages contain relevant information provided by the Lance.
ln%d: can’t handle af%d
The interface was handed a message with addresses formated in an unsuitable address family, and the packet was dropped.
ln%d: memory error (MERR)
A memory parity error has occurred.
ln%d: lnalloc: cannot alloc memory ...
The ln driver was unable to allocate memory for internal data structures.
ln%d: initialization error
The ln driver was unable to initialize the network interface.
ln%d: SIOCADDMULTI fail, multicast list full
Too many multicast requests have been made.