Best reference for understanding low level info on nic cards drivers and functionality

Applications IP Networking
1

Hi,

What is the best reference that gives in detail on nic cards configuration , assigning multiple ip addresses to a single interface, netlink library etc and all basic stuff at this level..?

Thanks

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From the silence, I sense my gut feel is right: they vary tremendously in what they do and how much they load CPU and RAM bus, as well as how well they do it, latency and bandwidth and duplex support and bells and whistles that might be worth it. Probably as bad a video cards! With multicore systems, is CPU cost a worry? Might e slower than an embedded CPU! Good luck. AnandTech has been a good reference in many areas, so he might come through here, too. 10Gbit Ethernet: Killing Another Bottleneck?

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There is no single best reference for this sort of information. If you really want to get familiar with this sort of stuff you need to study network driver code. I suggest you start off with the e1000. The Intel source code is very readable.

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