FWE(4)

🌸 NAME 🌸

okay bestie, meet fwe(4) from the Kernel Interfaces Manual — it’s the Ethernet emulation driver for FireWire, and it’s giving niche icon energy 💅.

fwe — Ethernet emulation driver for FireWire.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

so if you want to compile this driver into the kernel, you literally place these lines in your kernel configuration file:

device firewire
device fwe

alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place this line in loader.conf(5):

if_fwe_load="YES"

slay, that’s the whole synopsis 🎀.

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so the fwe driver provides non-standard Ethernet emulation over FireWire (IEEE 1394). yes, non-standard is the key word, bestie ✨.

firewire(4) and fwohci(4) must be configured in the kernel as well. no cap, you need both 🫶.

this driver exploits asynchronous stream over IEEE 1394 to carry Ethernet frames. the stream channel can be specified by the hw.firewire.fwe.stream_ch sysctl(8). iconic little knob, honestly 🎀.

this driver supports polling(4) as well if it is compiled with the DEVICE_POLLING option. highkey useful if you’re into that 🔥.

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• arp(4)
• firewire(4)
• fwip(4)
• fwohci(4)
• netintro(4)
• ng_ether(4)
• polling(4)
• ifconfig(8)
• kldload(8)
• sysctl(8)

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

the fwe device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.0. so it’s been serving since way back 🫶.

👑 AUTHORS 👑

the fwe driver and this manual page were written by Hidetoshi Shimokawa. we love a multitasking icon 💖.

💀 BUGS 💀

okay so the tea: this driver emulates Ethernet in a very adhoc way and it does not reserve a stream channel using an isochronous manager. that’s the caveat, bestie — don’t act surprised 😭.

also note that this driver uses a protocol which is very different from RFC 2734 (IPv4 over IEEE 1394). so it is not the same thing, periodt 💀.

mwah 💋 — footer vibe check: Debian, July 16, 2005, FWE(4). that’s the cute little source/date sign-off, and we’re out 🫶.