Introduction
This plugin updates BCM57xx wired network adaptors from Broadcom using a reverse-engineered flashing protocol. It is designed to be used with the clean-room reimplementation of the BCM5719 firmware found here: https://github.com/meklort/bcm5719-fw
Protocol
BCM57xx devices support a custom com.broadcom.bcm57xx protocol which is
implemented as ioctls like ethtool does.
GUID Generation
These devices use the standard PCI instance IDs, for example:
PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_1657PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_1657&SUBSYS_17AA222E
Update Behavior
The device usually presents in runtime mode, and the firmware is written to the device without disconnecting the working kernel driver. Once complete the APE is reset which may cause a brief link reconnection.
On flash failure the device is nonfunctional, but is recoverable using direct BAR writes, which is typically much slower than updating the device using the kernel driver and the ethtool API.
Vendor ID Security
The vendor ID is set from the PCI vendor, in this instance set to PCI:0x14E4
External Interface Access
This plugin requires the SIOCETHTOOL ioctl interface.