Cavium CN6640-SNIC10E on FreeBSD (work in progress)

Status: work in progress, not implemented. There is no BSD driver today. The bsdmod/ directory in the repository only holds the plan, and the installer cancels on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and DragonFly with a message saying so.

This is the FreeBSD page of the Cavium CN6640-SNIC10E docs. It exists so the status is written down in one place. Linux and Windows are the supported systems: see the Linux and Windows pages.

Plan

The BSD driver would follow the same shared-memory BAR2 protocol as the Linux and Windows drivers, so the card side (the OpenWrt image and its octshm_card module) stays exactly as it is. Only the host driver is new: an if_octnic network interface that registers oct0 and oct1.

Phase 1: framework

if_octnic, a BSD network interface driver.
BAR2 access through the bus_space API.
Integration with the FreeBSD network stack, with mbuf-based packet handling in place of the Linux sk_buff and the Windows net buffers.

Phase 2: features

Multi-queue support.
DMA mode for the card-to-host path (DPI).
Zero-copy TX, as on Linux.
Card temperatures through sysctl.

None of these items is started. The plan, as written in the repository, is in bsdmod/README; the same placeholder covers OpenBSD and DragonFly BSD.

Questions, or want to follow or help?

Open an issue or a discussion on the repository, or email me@nicologiuliani.site. Nothing is started on the BSD side yet, so a discussion is the best way to follow the port or to offer help.