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Date:      Mon, 19 Jun 2000 20:24:42 -0400
From:      Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>, arch@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: (2nd iteration) New /dev/(random|null|zero) - review, please
Message-ID:  <v04210100b574686cd9cd@[128.113.24.47]>
In-Reply-To: <200006192352.QAA03874@usr06.primenet.com>
References:  <200006192352.QAA03874@usr06.primenet.com>

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At 11:52 PM +0000 6/19/00, Terry Lambert wrote:
>FWIW, I ran into a use for being able to tell from software
>whether the link integrity on an ethernet card was valid or not.
>
>My question is, I know my hardware can report it, but is this
>a general feature of most ethernet cards?  I know that Intel
>82558 and 82559 cards can tell you by you looking at bit 2
>of MDI register #1 (if the bit is lit, so is the blinky light
>hidden at the back of your rack).
>
>Would this be a useful thing to build into ifconfig?

I think it would be great.  I have no idea if other ethernet
cards will support it.  For those that don't, ifconfig could
just report nothing (if you're thinking of the link-status as
being part of the default output from ifconfig).

>I don't know how many of you find yourself crawling behind
>stacks of hardware to look for the blinky lights...

I run into this too, and at times it can be a real pain to
get in a position to see that light.

[though I'm not sure what this has to do with /dev/random,
  or has that thread wandered pretty far off topic by now?]


---
Garance Alistair Drosehn           =   gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer          or  drosih@rpi.edu
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute


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