[patch] ixg(4): Intel 82599 10-gigabit ethernet

[David Young <dyoung%pobox.com@localhost>]

Here is a NetBSD port of the Intel 82599 10-gigabit ethernet driver from
FreeBSD,
<ftp://elmendorf.ojctech.com/users/netbsd-08c5a58c/ixgbe.patch>.

To try it out, apply the patch and add this line to your kernel
configuration:

ixg*    at pci? dev ? function ?        # Intel 8259x 10 gigabit

Please send me any questions or comments.  I'd like to commit this
before the end of the week.

With all of the hardware acceleration options turned on and with
iperf(1) bound to the 0th CPU and running 4 threads, TCP transmission
speeds of 5 Gb/s are possible (receiver was a FreeBSD box).  The maximum
TCP receive speed I have observed is 3.6 Gb/s (transmitter was FreeBSD.)

If I don't bind iperf(1) to one CPU, then lock contention on my 2-CPU
test boxes gobbles up a lot of time and TCP transmission performance
plummets.  Our network stack doesn't do SMP well. :-/

The port was sponsored by Coyote Point Systems, Inc.

(I just realized that I should have called the manual page ixg.4 not
ixgbe.4.  I will fix that before I commit.)

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung%ojctech.com@localhost      Urbana, IL * (217) 344-0444 x24