[54563] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Weird networking issue.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen J. Wilcox)
Tue Jan 7 19:32:17 2003
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 00:30:45 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Stephen J. Wilcox" <steve@telecomplete.co.uk>
To: Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0301072330100.3021-100000@uplift.swm.pp.se>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
> > I think we all agree that autonegotiation is evil, and should be avoided
> > whenever possible. When you are looking for the root cause of the errors on
>
> I don't agree. I have seen more problems generated by incompetence in
> trying to fix duplex/speed, than I have seen problems generated by autoneg
> not working properly.
>
> I am always amazed by the fact that very few people out there know that
> you have to lock duplex at BOTH ENDS of any given link for it to work
> properly.
So thats human error not a problem with using forced settings, eliminate the
human error and I think you'll see forced always works, autoneg sometimes
works. (For future reference dont employ incompetent people to run your networks
folks!)
> Generally, in a LAN environment with good quality switches and good
> network cards, autoneg works just fine. Yes, with 10/100 meg
> fiber/converters converters you should definately lock duplex, but in most
> other cases I recommend to leave the duplex setting to auto.
Heh. I dont want to look at examples or find out what your experience is but in
mine across a wide range of vendors its prone to problems.
> Yes, cisco routers are notoriously bad at doing autoneg, but I blame that
> on cisco and not on autoneg. The el cheapo $50 desktop switches seem to
> hack autoneg just fine.
Have you looked at what autoneg is.. its horrible, a hack to help out the above
incompetent engineers who dont know how to force duplex.
.. well thats my opinion on the matter anyhow :)
Steve
