Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 18:31:34 -0800 From: "Philip J. Koenig" <pjklist@ekahuna.com> To: stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 4.5 PRERELEASE - Call for testing Message-ID: <3C2A1786.17075.63462D@localhost> In-Reply-To: <bulk.9350.20011226123801@hub.freebsd.org>
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On 26 Dec 2001, at 12:38, stable-digest boldly uttered: > Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 14:00:27 +0100 > From: sthaug@nethelp.no > Subject: Re: 4.5 PRERELEASE - Call for testing > > > > Thus the advice to either use auto-negotiate everywhere, or use manual > > > everywhere. One end auto-negotiate and one end manual is a recipe for > > > disaster. > > > > So, that implies that in these cases non-managable switches are doomed > > as you cannot 'hard-set' them to some value. > > If auto-negotiate fails on non-managable switches, you can usually get > it to work after the fact by manually configuring the box at the other > end. > > Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no Actually that is not always the case. I have a Netgear "auto- sensing" 8-port switch here which, no matter what I do, won't run half-duplex with an Intel 82558-based card, even if the Intel is "locked" at half-duplex. I'm told in this particular case that it has to do with Intel's (Windoze) NIC drivers, who knows. Others in this thread said you need to have both sides manual or both sides auto. I have also seen situations where an HP Procurve switch would not run correctly at 10Mbps/Half with a 3com 3CXFE575BT PC-card NIC, even if BOTH sides were "locked" at that speed. The symptom was very slow communication HP --> 3com, the other direction was OK. At 100Mbps it was fine. (this was also under windoze) There are no shortage of scenarios where auto-negotiation does NOT do what you want, even if just one end is "locked". And sometimes there are even issues when everything is set manually. See below. > Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 11:43:29 -0800 (PST) > From: Tom <tom@uniserve.com> > > I would recommend people use auto everwhere. Even the cheap devices > support it properly now. Auto-negotiation is going to become more > critical as more options are added to the ethernet standard (ie. > master/slave, flow control). The problem with this is that we DON'T always want every link to operate at its "maximum" setting. I have little interest in giving huge chunks of bandwidth to every miscellaneous user (and along with it the ability to do something dumb like bog the whole network down when they accidentally drag their entire hard drive icon to a network drive) when their work amounts to saving a couple of word processing documents to a server each day. Those people don't even need 10Mbps of bandwidth, much less 100 or more. All switches should have configurable ports, IMHO. Phil -- Philip J. Koenig pjklist@ekahuna.com Electric Kahuna Systems -- Computers & Communications for the New Millenium To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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