From owner-freebsd-stable  Wed Dec 26 16:22:23 2001
Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Received: from mail2.uniserve.com (mail2.uniserve.com [204.244.156.10])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 49FDF37B416
	for <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>; Wed, 26 Dec 2001 16:22:19 -0800 (PST)
Received: from mail2.uniserve.com ([204.244.156.10])
	by mail2.uniserve.com with esmtp (Exim 3.13 #1)
	id 16JOJG-000C6G-00; Wed, 26 Dec 2001 16:22:11 -0800
Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 16:22:10 -0800 (PST)
From: Tom <tom@uniserve.com>
X-Sender: tom@athena.uniserve.ca
To: "Peter/Los Angeles, CA" <peter@haloflightleader.net>
Cc: Sam Drinkard <sam@wa4phy.net>, Allen Landsidel <all@biosys.net>,
	sthaug@nethelp.no, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: 4.5 PRERELEASE - Call for testing
In-Reply-To: <011601c18e5b$cb3b16e0$245b1486@hhlaw.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10112261617120.78328-100000@athena.uniserve.ca>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
List-ID: <freebsd-stable.FreeBSD.ORG>
List-Archive: <http://docs.freebsd.org/mail/> (Web Archive)
List-Help: <mailto:majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG?subject=help> (List Instructions)
List-Subscribe: <mailto:majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG?subject=subscribe%20freebsd-stable>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG?subject=unsubscribe%20freebsd-stable>
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG


On Wed, 26 Dec 2001, 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?

  It isn't strange at all.  During auto-negotation both ends exchange a
list of capabilities that they support, and they decide what capabilities
to enable.  If you disable auto-negotiate at one end, the end still doing
auto-negotiating will default to half-duplex.  The speed is only thing
that can automaticatically detected.

...
> 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.

  Not the duplex settings.  If you disable auto-negotiating on your NIC,
by forcing it to full-duplex, your auto-negotiating switch won't know what
you support and default to half-duplex.  If the duplex is mistmatched,
everything seems to work, but there will be a 1 to 7% packet loss.


Tom


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message