PCIe Foundations for Switched NIC and Storage Systems

Label the root complex, switch ports, and endpoints in a PCIe system topology.

Explain the purpose of the transaction, data-link, and physical layers of PCIe.

Distinguish configuration, memory, and message requests and determine whether representative requests require completions.

Use domain, bus, device, and function identifiers to locate a PCIe function in a hierarchy.

Derive the path between a host and an endpoint from Linux PCIe tree output.

Calculate per-direction link bandwidth from PCIe generation and lane width after line encoding but before packet overhead.