From owner-freebsd-arch Mon Jun 19 17:24: 8 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mail.rpi.edu (mail.rpi.edu [128.113.100.7]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 91A9F37B509 for ; Mon, 19 Jun 2000 17:24:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.acs.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by mail.rpi.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA469620; Mon, 19 Jun 2000 20:24:02 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: drosih@mail.rpi.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200006192352.QAA03874@usr06.primenet.com> References: <200006192352.QAA03874@usr06.primenet.com> Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 20:24:42 -0400 To: Terry Lambert , arch@FreeBSD.ORG From: Garance A Drosihn Subject: Re: (2nd iteration) New /dev/(random|null|zero) - review, please Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message