Replacing the bnx2 driver

The bnx2 driver is for Broadcom's NetXtreme II (1G, not 10G) series of NICs.

• Datasheet ¹⁾
• Linux bnx2 driver ²⁾

I have confirmed the following cards are working:

• IBM 39Y6070 (BCM5708)
• IBM 42C1782 (BCM5709) ^{3) 4)}

The git repository is at: https://git.ipxe.org/people/dewyatt/ipxe.git ⁵⁾

• Some kind of firmware-less solution

• 08/02/2012 5706 support, maybe
• 08/01/2012 5709 support
• 07/31/2012 Link-up at 10/100/1000
• 07/22/2012 Receive
• 07/13/2012 Transmit & transmit completion
• 06/08/2012 Link-up/link status
• 06/01/2012 Load MIPS firmware
• 05/22/2012 Load RV2P firmware, dump NVRAM
• 05/16/2012 Perform a successful reset, MII read/write
• 05/08/2012 Skeleton in place, able to read register from the card

My current test NIC is an 39y6070.

My development machine is running Ubuntu and is connected to my test machine via a null modem cable. I use GtkTerm as a serial terminal.

I found it very helpful to wire the power button of my test machine up to the top of my desk. I used some spare wire, a couple female jumper wires (connected to the header on the motherboard), and a pushbutton I desoldered from an old cell phone. This way, I can power cycle the test machine by pushing a button a couple inches from my mouse.

The NetXtreme II series of cards require driver-loaded proprietary firmware to function.

The current Linux bnx2 driver uses two separate firmware files ⁶⁾, one for the RV2P firmware and one for the MIPS firmware.

The MIPS firmware file contains 5 different firmwares, each for a different CPU (there are 6 total 32-bit MIPS CPUs in a bnx2 NIC).

You can use the fw_info tool to print information about the firmware files. Here's an example:

[daniel@daniel-pc gsoc]$ ./fw_info bnx2_bnx2-mips-06-6.2.3.fw 
MIPS firmware
COM (Completion Processor):
    start addr: 0x08000118
    .text:
        addr  : 0x08000000
        len   : 0x00004A68
        offset: 0x000000C8
    .data:
        addr  : 0x00000000
        len   : 0x00000000
        offset: 0x00000000
    .rodata:
        addr  : 0x08004A68
        len   : 0x00000014
        offset: 0x00004B30
...

You can use the fw_elf tool to extract MIPS firmware into a standard ELF to ease disassembly.