Chapter 6: Installing the Linux Drivers
66
Overview
This chapter discusses the Linux drivers for the Broadcom NetXtreme II
network adapters and describes how to install them. For a description of
the drivers, see Table 8.
Limitations This section describes the testing limitations of the following Linux drivers:
“bnx2 Driver” on page 66
“bnx2i Driver” on page 66
bnx2 Driver
The current version of the driver has been tested on 2.4.x kernels (starting
from 2.4.24) and all 2.6.x kernels. The driver may not compile on kernels
older than 2.4.24.
Testing is concentrated on i386 and x86_64 architectures. Only limited
testing has been done on other architectures. You may need to make
minor changes to some source files and the Makefile on some kernels. In
addition, the Makefile does not compile the cnic driver on kernels older
than 2.6.16. iSCSI offload is only supported on 2.6.16 and newer kernels.
Support for the 2.4.21 kernels is provided in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.
bnx2i Driver
The current version of the driver has been tested on 2.6.x kernels, starting
from 2.6.18 kernel. The driver may not compile on older kernels with the
exception of SLES 10 SP1, which runs the 2.6.16.46 kernel. SUSE
upgraded the iscsi_transport kernel module in SLES 10 SP1. In addition,
Table 8. Broadcom NetXtreme II Linux Drivers
Linux Driver Description
bnx2
cnic
Indicates the Linux drivers for the AT-2973SX
AT-2973T, AT-2973T/4, and AT-VNC10S
network adapters. The bnx2 driver is the
networking driver and the cnic driver supports
additional features required by the bnx2i iSCSI
offload driver. The bnx2i iSCSI driver is
packaged separately.
bnx2i Indicates the Linux driver that enables iSCSI
offload on the AT-2973SX, AT-2973T,
AT-2973T/4, and AT-VNC10S network
adapters.