Re: How to active/validate the NPE-B NIC of intel_ixdp465?

[Mikael Pettersson <mikpe@it.uu.se>]

bigboy writes:
 > Hi,
 > 
 > I have an Intel IXDP465 target with a NPE-B mezzanine card and that
 > was supported & validated with linux-2.6.21 + "Intel IXP400 Software
 > Access Library". And now the NPE ether net driver moved into the linux
 > baseline (drivers/net/arm/ixp4xx_eth.c) so I want to try it without
 > Intel's lib but failed. Here is my operations:
 > 
 > Build the zImage with linux-2.6.28, I configure the kernel with
 > ixp4xx_defconfig and just change the IXP4XX_ETH to Y.
 > 
 > Build the firmware for NPE-B:
 > 
 > -) download the "Intel(R) IXP400 software - Access Library
 > (non-crypto)" to get the head file IxNpeMicrocode.h;
 > 
 > -) download the "Intel IXP400 software - NPE microcode (non-crypto)",
 > both 2.4 and 3.0/3.0.1 version, unpack it and copy the head file
 > IxNpeMicrocode.h to its source code subdirectory;
 > 
 > -) Edit the head file and comment out those macros for NPE-A and NPE-C
 > and just leave the one for NPE-B;
 > 
 > -) Edit the IxNpeMicrocode.c and comment out line 25664, the 8 bytes
 > of  "END OF IMAGE LIBRARY MARKER".
 > 
 > -) "gcc ixNpeDlImageConverter.c" and get a a.out; run it and get the
 > firmware called IxNpeMicrocode.dat.
 > 
 > -) Rename the IxNpeMicrocode.dat to NPE-B and copy it to the NFS
 > rootfs of the target in /lib/firmware.
 > 
 > 
 > There is a PCI E100 NIC and the linux kernel mount NFS rootfs through
 > it. The kernel can find two NICs related to NPE, eth1 for NPE-B and
 > eth2 for NPE-C. Then, I tried to active the NIC of NPE-B(eth1):
 > 
 > -) "ifconfig eth1 hw ether 1234567890ab 192.168.1.1 netmask
 > 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255". With this I can see the driver
 > output "eht1: link up, speed 100 Mb/s, full duplex".
 > 
 > -) Then "ping -I eth1 192.168.1.2". Then all I can get is "Destination
 > Host Unreachable" :-(
 > 
 > With the firmware built with Microcode-V2.4, it can send up to 6
 > packages(get tx irq) and at last the "Link is down"; with the firmware
 > of V3.0, no package TX and at last the TX queue full and was
 > deactivated. With both of these firmware, no packages received.
 > 
 > I wonder if there are anything wrong with my operations or if I need
 > some other special configurations/operations? Or any advises on
 > debugging that.

You'd have better luck reaching the people in charge of this
on the arm kernel mailing list, or possibly the netdev list.

As I recall, the procedure for converting Intel's microcode .h
file to something ixp4xx_eth wanted to load involved using a
.h or .c file off the ixp4xx_eth driver's old web site.
(I don't have the details handy.)