Starting the network manager, protocols, and drivers

The io-pkt* manager is a process that assumes the central role to load a number of shared objects.

It provides the framework for the entire protocol stack and lets data pass between modules. In the case of native networking, the shared objects are lsm-qnet.so and networking drivers, such as devn-ppc800-ads.so. The shared objects are arranged in a hierarchy, with the end user on the top, and hardware on the bottom.

CAUTION:

The device enumerator starts io-pkt* automatically when you boot and loads the appropriate drivers for the detected devices. For information about customizing how the enumerator starts io-pkt*, see "Device enumeration" in the Controlling How Neutrino Starts chapter in this guide.

It's possible to run more than one instance of io-pkt, but doing so requires a special setup. If you want to start io-pkt* "by hand," you should slay the running io-pkt* first.

You can start the io-pkt* from the command line, telling it which drivers and protocols to load:

$ io-pkt-v4 -del900  -p qnet  &

This causes io-pkt-v4 to load the devn-el900.so Ethernet driver and the Qnet protocol stack.

Or, you can use the mount and umount` commands to start and stop modules dynamically, like this:

$ io-pkt-v6-hc &
$ mount -Tio-pkt devn-el900.so
$ mount -Tio-pkt lsm-qnet.so

To unload the driver, type:

umount /dev/io-net/en0

Note: You can't unmount a protocol stack such as TCP/IP or Qnet.