Physical Link Parameters

Unlike the MAC and MTU parameters which are applicable to all Ethernet interfaces, the following settings are only applicable to physical interfaces (i.e., interfaces backed by a physical PCI port).

See also

The command reference for details.

Auto-Negotiation

Even though it is often left enabled, auto-negotiation may be changed to cope with certain physical connections.

vrouter running physical eth0# ethernet auto-negotiation false

Duplex Mode

By default, this setting is negotiated automatically with the connected endpoint. When auto-negotiation is set to false, you must specify the duplex mode of the connection.

vrouter running physical eth0# ethernet duplex-mode full|half

Port Speed

By default, this setting is negotiated automatically with the connected endpoint. When auto-negotiation is set to false, you must specify the port speed.

vrouter running physical eth0# ethernet port-speed 10gb

Flow Control

Pause frames are used by the NIC to ask a peer to slow down. It can be configured to automatically send pause frames as soon as the receive buffer is getting low, and to accept or not pause frames from other devices.

The default settings vary with hardware and device drivers. You may force them with the following commands:

vrouter running physical eth0# ethernet flow-control-tx false
vrouter running physical eth0# ethernet flow-control-rx false