Subject: Re: mii-tool gigabit support.

From: Auke Kok <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:50:03 -0700

Rick Jones wrote:
>> With mii-tool we can do the command below and work with a half duplex 
>> hub and a full duplex switch.
>> mii-tool -A 10baseT-FD,10baseT-HD eth0
> 
> Why, and how often, is that really necessary?

This is a bit of a hypothetical discussion of course, but I can imagine a lot 
of users with 100mbit switches in their homes (imagine all the DSL/cable 
routers out there...) that want to stop their nic from attempting to negotiate 
1000mbit.

Another scenario: forcing the NIC to negotiate only full-duplex speeds. Not 
only fun if you try it against a hub, but possibly useful.

For us it's much more interesting because we try every damn impossible 
configuration anyway and see what gives (or breaks).

Anyway, a patch to make ethtool do this was merged as Jeff Kirsher pointed out, 
so you can do this now with ethool too.

Cheers,

Auke