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Date:      Wed, 26 Dec 2001 18:18:37 -0500
From:      Allen Landsidel <all@biosys.net>
To:        "Peter/Los Angeles, CA" <peter@haloflightleader.net>, "Sam Drinkard" <sam@wa4phy.net>, "Allen Landsidel" <all@biosys.net>
Cc:        <sthaug@nethelp.no>, <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: 4.5 PRERELEASE - Call for testing
Message-ID:  <5.1.0.14.0.20011226181401.00ae1ec8@rfnj.org>
In-Reply-To: <011601c18e5b$cb3b16e0$245b1486@hhlaw.com>
References:  <Your message of "Wed, 26 Dec 2001 13:02:11 -0500"> <5.1.0.14.0.20011226125628.00b08e10@rfnj.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20011226141409.00b02048@rfnj.org> <3C2A45F9.EBF0C148@vortex.wa4phy.net>

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At 02:22 PM 12/26/2001 -0800, Peter/Los Angeles, CA wrote:

>Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it kind of strange that
>auto-sensing/auto-negotiating must be enabled on both sides for the feature
>to work a bit strange?

You can't just put that slash there and treat the two things the same way.. 
they're not the same.

Auto-sensing is a term for determining line-speed only, and was done 
differently by every manufacturer.  This is why you'll find that auto-sense 
often won't work when the switch/hub is a different brand than the NICs 
plugged into it.

Because of this problem, there arose an industry standard (called 
auto-negotiation) that handles negotiation of speed *and* duplex settings.


>At home, I have a Netgear FS116, a 16-Port unmanaged switch.  It is
>auto-sensing/full-duplex 10/100Mbits/sec switch.  Therefore, we cannot
>control how it will behave.
>
>On the other hand, I have network cards on my computer which I can set to
>full/half/auto/10/100, whatever combination I like, and yet, the switch will
>continue to work.

Same here with my Linksys EF2S16, also a 16-Port unmanaged switched.  It is 
auto-negotiating however, not auto-sensing.  AFAIK only NICs are 
auto-sensing;  They try and "sense" the speed the hub is running at, and 
run at that speed themselves.


>What I'm getting at is that just because one end is not set to
>auto-negotiate/auto-sense that there will be no communication at all.  Say,
>that one end is set manually, and the other end is automatic.  The automatic
>end will set itself to the parameters of the one that is manually set.  This
>is how my network works.  Thus, I don't believe that both ends, need to be
>set the same way in order to work in this scenario.

For auto-negotiation you are absolutely correct.  Setting it manually on 
just one end is the right way to do it, and often times, the only way to do it.



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