setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

[Paul Furness]

Hi.

Can anyone tell me how to find out the speed (10/100) and the
full/half-duplex-ness of my ethernet card?

I thought there'd be something under /proc, but I can't find anything
(probably because I'm not looking hard enough).


I am running RedHat 7.3 and ximian plus all the patches I can find (it
was a new build, not an upgrade), and I am using a Dell Precision 340
which has an onboard 3C59x controller.

My kernel version is 2.4.18-3 (as comes from RedHat) which I haven't
built from source - it's just running the way it came. I'll get around
to building a custom one sometime soon... :)
The main implication of this is that I am running the network driver as
a module, rather than compiled in directly.

Thanks.

-- 
Paul Furness

Systems Manager

Visual Information Laboratory
Mitsubishi Electric ITE BV 

Re: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

[David Chin]

In message <1023966728.10378.22.camel@Zebra>, Paul Furness writes:
> 
> Can anyone tell me how to find out the speed (10/100) and the
> full/half-duplex-ness of my ethernet card?

I don't know how to do this.

But I do know how to set the duplex switch for a 3c59x ethernet card.
This is from http://www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html

In your /etc/modules.conf file, you should have:

   alias eth0 3c59x
   options eth0 full_duplex=1

and then reboot.  (You could also insmod the module, but you'd first have
to go to single-user, rmmod the module, and insmod it with the full_duplex
option.  Might as well edit modules.conf and reboot to make sure it will 
take the next time you reboot.)

I had to do this because I connect to an old switch which doesn't 
auto-negotiate the duplex setting.

Cheers,
--Dave

Re: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

[Murat Koc]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 345 bytes --]


> Hi.
> 

Hi,

> Can anyone tell me how to find out the speed (10/100) and the
> full/half-duplex-ness of my ethernet card?
>
may be ethtool can help you to view (or to set these variables).

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gkernel/

or some diag tools

http://www.scyld.com/diag/

 
-- 
IYI CALISMALAR

								MURAT KOC

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 831 bytes --]

Re: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

[mike]

Hi,

Redhat 7.3 includes a tool called "mii-tool", found in /sbin.  Run this with
no arguments, and it will show you what your link(s) are connected at.

Thanks.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Furness" <paul.furness@vil.ite.mee.com>
To: "Linux-Admin" <linux-admin@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 7:12 AM
Subject: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards


> Hi.
>
> Can anyone tell me how to find out the speed (10/100) and the
> full/half-duplex-ness of my ethernet card?
>
> I thought there'd be something under /proc, but I can't find anything
> (probably because I'm not looking hard enough).
>
>
> I am running RedHat 7.3 and ximian plus all the patches I can find (it
> was a new build, not an upgrade), and I am using a Dell Precision 340
> which has an onboard 3C59x controller.
>
> My kernel version is 2.4.18-3 (as comes from RedHat) which I haven't
> built from source - it's just running the way it came. I'll get around
> to building a custom one sometime soon... :)
> The main implication of this is that I am running the network driver as
> a module, rather than compiled in directly.
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Paul Furness
>
> Systems Manager
>
> Visual Information Laboratory
> Mitsubishi Electric ITE BV
>
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>

Re: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

[David Chin]

In message <03ad01c21314$18c013b0$0201a8c0@ws1>, "mike" writes:
> 
> Redhat 7.3 includes a tool called "mii-tool", found in /sbin.  Run this with
> no arguments, and it will show you what your link(s) are connected at.
> 

Thanks for the tip.  mii-tool also allows you to change the settings of the 
card without rebooting or going into single-user.

--Dave

Re: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

[Paul Furness]

Thanks, and thanks to everyone who made some suggestions.

mii-tool worked just great to tell me what I was using (100M HD) and
putting:

options 3c59x full_duplex=1

in /etc/modules.conf persuaded the card to go at 100M FD.


P.

On Thu, 2002-06-13 at 20:54, mike wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Redhat 7.3 includes a tool called "mii-tool", found in /sbin.  Run this with
> no arguments, and it will show you what your link(s) are connected at.
> 
> Thanks.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Furness" <paul.furness@vil.ite.mee.com>
> To: "Linux-Admin" <linux-admin@vger.kernel.org>
> Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 7:12 AM
> Subject: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards
> 
> 
> > Hi.
> >
> > Can anyone tell me how to find out the speed (10/100) and the
> > full/half-duplex-ness of my ethernet card?
> >
> > I thought there'd be something under /proc, but I can't find anything
> > (probably because I'm not looking hard enough).
> >
> >
> > I am running RedHat 7.3 and ximian plus all the patches I can find (it
> > was a new build, not an upgrade), and I am using a Dell Precision 340
> > which has an onboard 3C59x controller.
> >
> > My kernel version is 2.4.18-3 (as comes from RedHat) which I haven't
> > built from source - it's just running the way it came. I'll get around
> > to building a custom one sometime soon... :)
> > The main implication of this is that I am running the network driver as
> > a module, rather than compiled in directly.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > --
> > Paul Furness
> >
> > Systems Manager
> >
> > Visual Information Laboratory
> > Mitsubishi Electric ITE BV
> >
> >
> > -
> > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> >
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 
-- 
Paul Furness

Systems Manager

Visual Information Laboratory
Mitsubishi Electric ITE BV 

Re: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

[Glynn Clements]

Paul Furness wrote:

> Thanks, and thanks to everyone who made some suggestions.
> 
> mii-tool worked just great to tell me what I was using (100M HD) and
> putting:
> 
> options 3c59x full_duplex=1
> 
> in /etc/modules.conf persuaded the card to go at 100M FD.

Are you aware that forcing full-duplex is usually the wrong thing to
do?

If the network is switched, full-duplex should get enabled
automatically. If the network isn't switched, enabling full-duplex
will usually have an adverse effect upon performance, due to
collisions.

IOW, are you using full-duplex because you just assumed that it would
better than half-duplex, or are you aware of the issues, and know of a
particular reason why, in spite of the fact that the driver doesn't
enable full-duplex, it really is OK to use it?

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements@virgin.net>

Re: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

[David Chin]

In message <15630.2559.914232.169038@cerise.nosuchdomain.co.uk>, Glynn Clements
 writes:
> 
> Paul Furness wrote:
> 
> > Thanks, and thanks to everyone who made some suggestions.
> > 
> > mii-tool worked just great to tell me what I was using (100M HD) and
> > putting:
> > 
> > options 3c59x full_duplex=1
> > 
> > in /etc/modules.conf persuaded the card to go at 100M FD.
> 
> Are you aware that forcing full-duplex is usually the wrong thing to
> do?
> 
> If the network is switched, full-duplex should get enabled
> automatically. If the network isn't switched, enabling full-duplex
> will usually have an adverse effect upon performance, due to
> collisions.

Not necessarily:  The departmental 100baseT switch where I am is old and 
does not auto-negotiate duplex settings.  There is a physical switch on each 
port of the switch that switches duplex settings. (Um, I was at a loss for 
words.)  Anyway, upshot is that I needed to force full-duplex (mii-tool -F 
100baseTx-FD).

But, yes, one must make sure that FD is the appropriate setting.

--Dave

Re: setting duplex mode on ethernet cards

[Paul Furness]

Yeah, thanks, I know it's not usually the right way to do it. We thought
we might possibly have a faulty switch, and I also thought that the
version of the kernel I had compiled might have gone wrong.

It turned out to be a fault on the cat 5E patch panel (some almost but
not quite touching bare wires) that was causing all kinds of havoc.

It is now all behaving itself properly, including autoneg to 100M FD.

I should have learned by now: "Check no.1 - is it plugged in right?"

:)

P.


On Mon, 2002-06-17 at 17:10, Glynn Clements wrote:
> 
> Paul Furness wrote:
> 
> > Thanks, and thanks to everyone who made some suggestions.
> > 
> > mii-tool worked just great to tell me what I was using (100M HD) and
> > putting:
> > 
> > options 3c59x full_duplex=1
> > 
> > in /etc/modules.conf persuaded the card to go at 100M FD.
> 
> Are you aware that forcing full-duplex is usually the wrong thing to
> do?
> 
> If the network is switched, full-duplex should get enabled
> automatically. If the network isn't switched, enabling full-duplex
> will usually have an adverse effect upon performance, due to
> collisions.
> 
> IOW, are you using full-duplex because you just assumed that it would
> better than half-duplex, or are you aware of the issues, and know of a
> particular reason why, in spite of the fact that the driver doesn't
> enable full-duplex, it really is OK to use it?
> 
> -- 
> Glynn Clements <glynn.clements@virgin.net>
> 
-- 
Paul Furness

Systems Manager

Visual Information Laboratory
Mitsubishi Electric ITE BV