Ethtool and not taking the settings

[Coolmar]

Hi,

I am trying to set my eth0 interface to the following:

speed = 1000
duplex = full
autoneg = off

I run the command:

ethtool -s speed 1000 duplex full autoneg off

and it doesn't take it. Is there an error in there? Is there another way I can change the settings?

Thanks

[Rick Garland]

Check the switch settings. Is the switch port you are connected to set for 1000? Set for autoneg off? etc.

[Coolmar]

Yes, the switch port is set to the settings that I am trying to use.

[Stuart Browne]

What type of NIC are you using, under which Linux distribution?

Most cards (but not all) drivers will accept settings such as this from 'ethtool', but others need to be set when the driver it's self initializes.

grep eth0 /etc/modules.conf

Should show what driver is being used for the moment, and 'modinfo ' should show you what options are avaialbe to it.

Generally to use this method, you add an:

options

To your '/etc/modules.conf', and every time the driver initializes (assuming 'insmod' isn't used directly), it sets those options.

[Coolmar]

I am using Redhat Linux Enterprise Server Rel. 4. There is no /etc/modules.conf and I am not sure what the brand of NIC is. Here is my ethtool output:

Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Half
Port: Twisted Pair
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: d
Link detected: yes

[Stuart Browne]

Under RHES4 it'll be '/etc/modprobe.conf'.

[Coolmar]

Ok...found it. Here is what it says:

alias eth0 bcm5700
alias eth1 bcm5700
alias scsi_hostadapter cciss
alias usb-controller ohci-hcd

[Rick Garland · Accepted solution]

This BroadCom NIC had some issues with some distros of Linux.

Here is a site from BrodCom that gives some details as to what you may need to do.

http://www1.jpn.hp.com/products/software/oe/linux/mainstream/bin/support/doc/option/nic/bcm5700/bcm5700-7.4.12b-1_ldistrib.txt

At this other site, I noticed and newer driver, just built May 11, 2005. (some 14 days ago)

http://www.broadcom.com/drivers/downloaddrivers.php

Lots of other posts to be found. From google I searched bcm5700 + linux

[Coolmar]

Well I guess the syntax was wrong....when I did:

ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full autoneg off ... it worked...well, sort of. Still won't take "speed 1000" even though it is a gigabit card. This is the error:

Cannot set new settings: Invalid argument
not setting speed
not setting duplex
not setting autoneg

Guess I will look into this one too.

[Coolmar]

Found out the last part...the switch only takes up to 100.

Thanks for all the help everybody.

Sally