Need to confirm driver's operational mode of NICs

[Ralph Grothe]

Hi network wizards,

we experience slow transfer rates of nightly backups between some of our HP-UX boxes and the storage server.

Our networkers say a possible cause could be that their network components such as switches and routers are configured to auto-negotiate whether to switch to half or full duplex mode.

Assuming that any decent Unix OS's nic driver would operate automatically a nic in full-duplex mode when it detected any such capabilities and weren't told not to, I presumptiously denied any blame on behalf of my servers.

But I'm not so sure where to find evidence.

When I issue the following

lanadmin -m -s -x lan0
MTU Size = 1500
Speed = 100000000
Current Speed = 100 Full-Duplex Auto-Negotiation-OFF

I find my assumption confirmed.
But is this a valid proof?

Are there other commands to find out about the nic drivers' settings?

On a Linux box I could simply look it up in the /proc filesystem which also serves as an online-switchboard for such kernel settings (I really miss this feature and /proc on HP-UX)

I know there is a specific command to tamper with the lan/nic driver (I think Solaris has a namesake, maybe some POSIX SysV standard?), but unfortunately forgot its name. :-(

[Michael Tully]

Hi Ralph,

The first place I would look is in the interactive 'lanadmin' to see the statistics on both pages. The 'late collisions' value is always a good guide.

The settings you've supplied look okay to me as long as your switch is set the same way.

The 'lanadmin' command is the one to use to change settings. To set them permanently, you need to change the correct file under /etc/rc.config.d/hp...... depending on the NIC card and the server.

Cheers
~Michael~

[Roger Baptiste]

<MTU Size = 1500
Speed = 100000000
Current Speed = 100 Full-Duplex Auto-Negotiation-OFF

I find my assumption confirmed.
But is this a valid proof? >>

Yes, it is. To make further confirmation, you can run lanadmin in interactive mode.
You can check what are the other lan ports on the system by running lanscan and then doing a landadmin on all the ports. Make sure your backup is using the right lan ports. (the datalist would have it).

If your backup load is high, you may have to consider moving to SAN.

HTH
raj

[sven verhaegen · Accepted solution]

Hi

I would stick to the lanadmin command , it is the supported way of getting to the lancard information itself as it looks in the active system for the actual setting of the card , I would not advise going to look in the kernel by any means (like using ADB..),, I have no knowledge of any supported tool on HP-UX which would enable you to get this info a different way, if lanadmin tells you that it is Half-duplex or Full-duplex it has gotten this data through the driver of the card itself so you can trust the information

I did see that the card noted AUTO-NEGOTIATION off , this would suggest that you forced the card itself in the /etc/rc.config.d/hp....conf file specific for your lancard, thus the switch itself could then be in auto mode en select wathever mode it wants , as you perhaps know auto-negotiation is a two-way protocol it needs a negotiating peer on both sides , if you force the lancard on the HP it should be forced on the switch also , if not done this way , the switch might perhaps chose to go to Half-Duplex (depending on vendor preferences)

a good rule is

HP switch

forced forced
auto auto

!!!!!
forced auto
or
auto forced
!!!!!

will result in duplex mismatches and in some cases even without messages in nettl.LOG or syslog so you could think all is ok but stille errors are seen in lanadmin and performance is bad , there is no way from HP-UX out to see the peer port setting (appart from some switch management tool of course) so both sides need checking

[James Beamish-White]

You can also look at the network speeds in a nice manner through SAM.

Of course, if it's the network team that's pushing back to you, you could always tell them to put on some sort of detection tool to check it for themselves. :-)

James

[John Carr_2]

Hi

lanadmin also will let you reset the NIC physically without rebooting the system should you wish to.

John.