How do I query active lan interface settings

[Sue Draper]

Hi,

Is there a way of querying the settings with the system up, other than looking at the lights on the card or relying on the messages file? I've not found anything in netstat, ifconfig or lan_config for this.

The reason for asking is that our DE600-AA card seems to ignore the console setting of fastFD and come up with another setting. I used lan_config to set it to 100 Mbps full duplex, which is reflected in the messages file.

Extract from messages:
vmunix: ee0: auto negotiation disabled
vmunix: ee0: 100 Mbps Full duplex

Is there a command to query the speed at which a lan interface is running, or to check whether autonegotiation is enabled or it is at full or half duplex?

Regards,
Sue Draper

[Dave Bechtold · Accepted solution]

Hi Sue,

Yes, there is a command - hwmgr.

Try the following...

# hwmgr -get attr -cat network

This will display all network interfaces configured in the system and their configured attributes. The speed is listed under "media_speed" and Duplex is "full_duplex" 0 means half-duplex and 1 is full duplex. There are several other goodies listed there as well.

Hope this helps.

Dave Bechtold

[Sue Draper]

Thank you, Dave. That is very helpful. Is there something for v 4 that will do the same thing?

Also, do you have any idea why the DE600-AA card ignores the fastFD setting made on the console?

Regards,
Sue

[Ralf Puchner]

the de60x card does not honor any console settings. The default settings are autoneg. This could be monitored by viewing the boot logs, a message "parallel detection" will be shown.

In V4.x the only way to verify the port speed is to check the boot logs.

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi Sue,

please tell us, what the network card comes up with.

Michael

[Dave Bechtold]

Hi Sue,

On V4 I'm only aware of using the messages file to identify the controller settings.

There is a utility to change the media speed and duplex mode, etc... on v4 and v5 - lan_config(8). The DE600 series can be configured using the lan_config utility.

Hope that helps,
Dave

[Sue Draper]

Thanks for the replies.

In answer to Michel's question, this DE600-AA card comes up at half duplex, even though both the card and the port were autonegotiating and capable of 100 Mbps full:

ee0: Parallel Detection, 100 Mbps half duplex

I could set it to full duplex using lan_config in inet.local but did not know until now why I needed to do that with the console setting at fastFD.

It was the fact that the card was ignoring the console settings that had me baffled. Is there somewhere in the HP site that I could check which other cards behave the same way? We don't appear to have this problem with our DE500 cards.

Sue

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi Sue,

There might the slight chance to get it fixed by using the speed 200 option in rc.config for that device. In the documentation however is mentioned only tu devices, so I am not sure, whether it also applies for de600.

regards

Michael

[Ralf Puchner]

All newer cards does not honor the console variables (e.g. gigabit, except DEGXA which uses eg0_mode variables).

The following information was taken from the documentation:

"The DE600 is designed to automatically connect to all network configurations without
manual intervention; however, if manual intervention is required, lan_config operations are supported (see lan_config(8) for more information)."

Why not using "autoneg" mode and let the devices decide which settings are the best?
Be sure the switch is 100% compatible and does work properly in this mode (which is not almost the case)

[Sue Draper]

Thanks for the information. Interestingly, these cards were set up to autonegotiate, with auto/auto at the port, too. This worked fine for a couple of years, but for some reason the autonegotiation started to fix on half duplex. I can't see a good reason for this, given that this can be increased to full duplex using lan_config.

However, I shall just set this in inet.local as this is effective. Thank you, once again for your input.

Sue

[Sue Draper]

For information.

It appears that the reason for the card failing to come up at full duplex could be due to an issue with the Cisco switch. One of our network guys reports that that some NIC cards still try to perform autonegotiation even when hard-coded to 100/full. If the switch (2950) is hardcoded to 100/full, ie not autonegotiating then the test fails and the server drops back to half-duplex mode (but might not report this).

Sue

[Pieter 't Hart]

we had problems with autonegotiate since we begun with 100Mb-cards.
the origin certainly seems to lie by cisco, but we have the same experience with cabletron.
on our catalyst-5000 and 5500 switches (and cabletron SSR2000) we ended up setting speed and duplex on all ports manually.

anyway why should you want to fall back in speed and duplex when both ports are capable of 100Mbit FD ?
then there is something seriously wrong and action should be taken anyway!

in the cisco docu we finally found that if the catalyst port is set manualy the connected port set to auto is not supported.
see : http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/46.html#auto_neg_valid

for years we had our "ewa0_mode=FastFD"
it worked fine on a catalyst-5000 and a Catalyst-2950 with ports set to 100Mb-FD
Then we moved the system to a Catalyst-5500 also with ports set to 100Mb-FD.
Suddely it diddn't work so fine anymore!!!!
what the hell was wrong?

After contacting HP it turned out that de DE600-card don't listen to ewa0_mode !!!!!
we had to use lan_config to set things right.
(ofcourse it works fine again ....... for the moment)
so a situation that seems predictable suddenly can change with a "minor" change (5000 -> 5500).


Pieter