NIC bring-up manual

Families

Driver	PCI IDs (family)	QEMU	Command	Test
e1000	8086:100e etc.	-device e1000 (default)	ifconfig	dhcptest via dhcp
e1000e	8086:10d3 etc.	-device e1000e	e1000e	e1000e_test
igb	8086:1533 era	(passthrough)	igb	igb_test
ixgbe	8086:10fb era	(passthrough)	ixgbe	ixgbe_test
rtl8139	10ec:8139	-device rtl8139	rtl8139	rtl8139_test
rtl8169-family	10ec:8168/8125/810x	(real hw)	rtl8168/rtl8125/rtl810x	*_test
BCM57xx	14e4:16xx era	(real hw)	bcm57xx	bcm57xx_test

Bring-up order

1. lspci shows the NIC; the family init binds it.
2. ifconfig shows the interface + MAC; nicstat the counters.
3. dhcp (or static ip/ifconfig configuration).
4. ping 10.0.2.2 then dns example.com then wget <host>.
5. Gates: nic_rw_test, tcptest, the SSH/HTTPS E2E.

Loopback between two instances

Two QEMUs on a shared socket/udp multicast make a real two-node network for the NIC tests - the *_test commands are written for both single-node and peer scenarios.

Sharp edges

• RX checksum chain: any NIC change reruns tcpstats + tcptest (the double-complement bug lived exactly there).
• Link state polling vs interrupts differs per family; the link_status op is the contract.