Ethernet Support Guide for HP-UX 11i v3

HP-UX provides several drivers that manage 10 Gigabit Ethernet cards and interfaces. The drivers
are shipped with software bundles. Each driver may support several cards. Table 2 (page 8) lists
the HP-UX 10 Gigabit drivers, their associated bundle names, and the manpage where you can
obtain more information. Some information about managing drivers is also included in “Setting
and displaying driver Ethernet parameters” (page 21).
Table 2 HP-UX 10 Gigabit drivers
ManpageBundleDriver
nwmgr_ixgbe(1m)10GigEthr-00ixgbe
nwmgr_icxgbe(1m)10GigEthr-01icxgbe
nwmgr_iexgbe(1m)10GigEthr-02iexgbe
nwmgr_iocxgbe(1m)10GigEthr-03iocxgbe
For more detailed information on the currently supported 10 Gigabit Ethernet cards, drivers, and
the platforms that support them, see the HP-UX Ethernet Card Support Matrix document at the
following Business Support Center website:
www.hp.com/go/hpux-iocards-11iv3-docs
To see what has changed from one release to the next, see the appropriate release notes for the
driver. The release notes are also located at the previously-mentioned website.
1.4 HP-UX drivers support a wide variety of cards
HP-UX drivers support a wide variety of network cards and devices for a variety of platforms. These
cards support conventional Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) as well as PCI-X (PCI-eXtended)
and PCIe (PCI Express) computer I/O bus standards (technologies for attaching hardware devices
to a computer).
Basic types of network devices supported by HP-UX drivers include:
• LAN on motherboard (LOM)
A LOM is a chip or chipset capable of network connections that has been embedded directly
on the motherboard of a server. For example, server blades include LOMs that are dual-port
1 or 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.
• Mezzanine card
A mezzanine card, also known as a daughterboard or daughtercard, plugs directly into the
motherboard or another plug-in card to extend functionality. It usually fits on top of and parallel
to the board or card it plugs into.
• Standup card
A standup card plugs into a PCI slot (PCIe or PCI-X). It may be a single-ported, dual-ported,
or quad-ported card, providing one, two, or four connections to the network.
• Combination (combo) card
A 10Gbe/Fibre Channel combo card is a PCIe device that can provide both Ethernet and
Fibre Channel connectivity, or a PCI-X device that provides both Ethernet and SCSI connectivity.
For example, for some combo cards, HP-UX can configure the card as four separate devices
— a dual port FC device and a dual port LAN device. The FC devices are connected to an
FC fabric through two FC fiber connections on the card. The LAN devices are connected to
a 10 Gigabit LAN through two NIC fiber connections on the card. The FC and LAN devices
do not share bandwidth on a common connection to the fabric or network.
For each of these types of cards, the network device may be dual-ported, providing two connections
to the network.
8 Overview