On Thu, 8 Aug 2002 at 12:15pm, KEVIN ZEMBOWER wrote

> admin:/proc/net # ifconfig eth0
> eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:90:27:B6:FB:E7  
>           inet addr:172.16.2.7  Bcast:172.16.255.255  Mask:255.255.0.0
>           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
>           RX packets:259376827 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
>           TX packets:188989102 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0
> carrier:65070
>           collisions:54220248 txqueuelen:100 
>           RX bytes:2574728265 (2455.4 Mb)  TX bytes:2729800656 (2603.3
> Mb)
> 
> This is the system on the 100Base-T line connected directly to a Cisco
> switch, which should be set at full duplex. Does the fact that they're
> any collisions at all indicate that this is not working in full duplex
> mode? The collisions are 21% of the number of RX packets, and 28% of the
> TX packets. Are these numbers excessive?

Yes.  You shouldn't have collisions.

> At one time I knew of a program or command that you could run to
> display the settings of the NIC, like auto-negotiate and so forth. For
> the life of me I can remember it now. Any suggestions for determining
> this information?

It depends on the NIC.  Don Becker has diagnostic tools for all sorts of 
NICs:

http://www.scyld.com/diag/index.html

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University