[rescue] FDDI vs switched 100BaseTX, vs SPARC LX

[Brian Hechinger]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 01:06:35PM -0400, Loomis, Rip wrote:
> Brian--
> The switch is a D-Link 5-port managed switch,
> VLAN-capable, which *does* auto-negotiate.
> I'm going to see if there's any sort of a
> firmware upgrade for it, though, that might
> address this problem.  We've seen similar
> problems with le* interfaces plugged into
> Cisco Catalyst switches here at work, so
> I really do think that the problems are on
> the Sun side rather than on the switch side.
> The work-around may still be on the switch
> side, though (which it has been in the past).

don't know much about the D-Link stuff.  i'm pretty much a hardcore cisco guy
when it comes to networking hardware. (well, not entirely, but definitely in
the workplace)

it sounds to me like you are going to have to bite the bullet and force your
switch to get it to talk to the LX.

> Has anyone ever gotten an le* interface to
> successfully auto-negotiate with *any* switch
> capable of 100Mbps full-duplex?  I've gotten
> this particular switch (and others with
> similar behavior) to work with 3C509 ISA
> cards and properly auto-negotiate--it seems
> to be only the le* drivers.  Haven't yet
> had a chance to test under *BSD or Linux
> to see if it's an issue specific to Solaris,
> and I can't find much on the web that seems
> directly relevant.

i've got a cheap POS LinkSys dual-speed switch.  it correctly identifies and
sets the ports for:

PC (Xircom RealPort CardBus 10/100) 100/full
hme 100/full
be 100/half
le 10/half
a wide variaety of 10/half tranceivers.

no problems at all.

> This is really a last-ditch effort to try to
> fix the broken side of things based on what I
> think is really b0rken.

in my experience, it's really b0rken, and the "real" fix is to meddle with
the switches port setting.  sucks, but it's life.

cheers,

-brian