NEP(4)

💅 NEP(4) — the Sun Neptune 10Gb Ethernet device page, bestie edition

okay so this is NEP(4), straight out of the Kernel Interfaces Manual, and it's all about the nep driver. buckle up 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

nep — the Sun Neptune 10Gb Ethernet device. yes she's a network card driver and yes she's iconic 👑

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

nep* at pci?
brgphy* at mii?

that's the whole vibe fr fr — she attaches at pci? and drags brgphy* along at mii? 🦋

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the nep driver is out here providing support for various NICs that are based on the Sun Neptune Ethernet controller chips 💅 and the lineup includes, like:

• Sun Quad GbE UTP x8 PCI Express Card
• Sun Quad GbE UTP x8 PCIe ExpressModule

she uses an internal or external PHY, or an external 10-bit interface. multi-talented, no cap ✨

the nep driver supports several media types, and you pick them via the ifconfig(8) command — main character energy tbh. the supported media types are:

• media autoselect — attempt to autoselect the media type. this is the default, she just knows 🌈
• media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex — use 1000baseT on copper, full duplex 💯
• media 1000baseT mediaopt half-duplex — use 1000baseT on copper, half duplex 🫶
• media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex — use 100baseTX, full duplex 🔥
• media 100baseTX mediaopt half-duplex — use 100baseTX, half duplex 🌸

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

the whole friend group, obviously 🫶

arp(4), brgphy(4), ifmedia(4), inet(4), intro(4), netintro(4), hostname.if(5), ifconfig(8)

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⭐ HISTORY ⭐

OpenBSD support for nep first appeared in OpenBSD 5.7 — she's been serving since day one 💜

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

the nep driver was written by Mark Kettenis <kettenis@openbsd.org> — absolute legend, we stan 🎀

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💀 BUGS 💀

okay so this is the part where we keep it real 🙈 the nep driver currently only supports 1Gb Ethernet NICs — yes, on a 10Gb chip, we know, don't @ me 😭

she also does not yet use many of the advanced features the Neptune chip offers. it's giving "potential unlocked later," ngl 🧚

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this one came from Debian, dated September 7, 2022, living under the name NEP(4) — periodt, go configure your NIC 🌟