MIIBUS(4)

📦 version 15.1, in freebsd 14.5, freebsd 15.1, nixpkgs unstable

💖 MIIBUS(4) 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the Kernel Interfaces Manual entry for miibus — the IEEE 802.3 Media Independent Interface network bus. iykyk. ✨

🎀 NAME 🎀

miibus — IEEE 802.3 Media Independent Interface network bus. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

For most network interface cards (NIC):

device miibus

That's the whole vibe for most NICs, fr fr. 🦋

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

Okay so the miibus driver is literally the interconnection between the Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer, the Physical Layer entities (PHY), the Station Management (STA) entities, and the PHY Layer, all as defined by the IEEE 802.3 Standard. no cap. 🔥

The miibus layer lets network device drivers share common support code for various external PHY devices — iconic teamwork, honestly. Most 10/100 network interface cards either use an MII transceiver or have built-in transceivers that can be programmed using an MII interface. The miibus driver currently handles all of the media detection, selection, and reporting using the ifmedia interface. There's even a generic driver included for all PHYs that are not handled by a specific driver, and that's possible because all 10/100 PHYs implement the same general register set along with their vendor specific register set. periodt. 🫶

🚗 the driver squad that uses the miibus interface 🚗

  • ae(4) — Attansic/Atheros L2 Fast Ethernet
  • age(4) — Attansic/Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet
  • alc(4) — Atheros AR8131/AR8132 PCIe Ethernet
  • ale(4) — Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 PCIe Ethernet
  • aue(4) — ADMtek USB Ethernet
  • axe(4) — ASIX Electronics AX88172 USB Ethernet
  • axge(4) — ASIX Electronics AX88178A/AX88179 USB Ethernet
  • bce(4) — Broadcom NetXtreme II Gigabit Ethernet
  • bfe(4) — Broadcom BCM4401 Ethernet
  • bge(4) — Broadcom BCM570xx Gigabit Ethernet
  • cas(4) — Sun Cassini/Cassini+ and National Semiconductor DP83065 Saturn
  • dc(4) — DEC/Intel 21143 and various workalikes
  • ed(4) — NE[12]000, SMC Ultra, 3c503, DS8390 cards
  • et(4) — Agere ET1310 Gigabit Ethernet
  • fxp(4) — Intel EtherExpress PRO/100B
  • gem(4) — Sun ERI, Sun GEM and Apple GMAC Ethernet
  • jme(4) — JMicron JMC250 Gigabit/JMC260 Fast Ethernet
  • lge(4) — Level 1 LXT1001 NetCellerator Gigabit Ethernet
  • msk(4) — Marvell/SysKonnect Yukon II Gigabit Ethernet
  • nfe(4) — NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Adapter
  • nge(4) — National Semiconductor DP83820/DP83821 Gigabit Ethernet
  • re(4) — RealTek 8139C+/8169/8169S/8110S
  • rl(4) — RealTek 8129/8139
  • rue(4) — RealTek RTL8150 USB To Fast Ethernet
  • sge(4) — Silicon Integrated Systems SiS190/191 Ethernet
  • sis(4) — Silicon Integrated Systems SiS 900/SiS 7016
  • sk(4) — SysKonnect SK-984x and SK-982x Gigabit Ethernet
  • smsc(4) — SMSC LAN9xxx USB Fast Ethernet
  • ste(4) — Sundance ST201 (D-Link DFE-550TX)
  • stge(4) — Sundance/Tamarack TC9021 Gigabit Ethernet
  • udav(4) — Davicom DM9601 USB Ethernet
  • ure(4) — RealTek RTL8152 USB To Fast Ethernet
  • vge(4) — VIA VT612x PCI Gigabit Ethernet
  • vr(4) — VIA Rhine, Rhine II
  • vte(4) — DM&P Vortex86 RDC R6040 Fast Ethernet
  • xl(4) — 3Com 3c90x

🧚 COMPATIBILITY 🧚

The implementation of miibus was originally intended to have similar API interfaces to BSD/OS 3.0 and NetBSD, but as a result they are not well behaved newbus device drivers. 😭 lowkey a compatibility caveat, bestie.

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

Go read these, bestie — all the references, no skips:

📚 STANDARDS 📚

More information on MII can be found in the IEEE 802.3 Standard. 💖

👑 HISTORY 👑

The miibus driver first appeared in FreeBSD 3.3. slay. ✨

🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

This manual page was written by Tom Rhodes <trhodes@FreeBSD.org>. 💌

💌 cute footer sign-off: Debian · December 26, 2020 · MIIBUS(4) — mwah, bestie 💋

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