Conference turris::digital_unix

>>> set ewa0_mode twisted

should force to stay with twisted pair

     we have the ewa0_mode set to twisted, but during the
     startup, the console "selecting Ten base T" line comes up and says 
     "no link".  The customer feels this is because his "digi
     international" twisted pair to thinwire converter does not supply the
     link test signal.    He says that this is NOT a requirement in the
     802.3 spec..  (don't know, haven't read it myself)
    
    any other ideas?
    john wieland
    

    
    All that message means is that the chip noticed that there's no link
    signal.  That's no big deal.  There are alot of repeaters that don't
    give a link signal.  
    
    Are you saying that tu0 isn't working or are you just complaining about
    the message?
    

    kirt,
    
    no, we are saying that no traffic is allowed to flow out the twisted
    pair port when the driver does not see the signal check.  in
    particular, the tu0 line in netstat -i show 0's for input/output
    packets and errors...  the ifconfig tu0 show flags = c63, but no 
    lights are lit on the back edge of the interface..
    
    while in this state, we plugged in a known working line from a hub 
    that does support the signal check, and the light comes on and traffic
    begins to flow.. (we were pinging another node on the net.)
    
    
     any help is appreciated
    john wieland 
    customer support center.

    
    The driver (even for V4.0) doesn't care if there's link or not.  It'll
    only tell you that it noticed that there's no link signal...
    
    Anyway, there's lots of other things that could be happening.
    
    	1) The digi board might require you to use a crossover cable.
    	2) Your network configuration could be wrong.
    	3) There could be no traffic on the digi board.
        4) The digi board might be bad (or not work on Digital UNIX).
    
    When you have tu0 plugged into the digi board, what errors to you get
    when you try to ping?  Do you have more than one LAN interface on the
    system?  If so, they have to be in different subnets.
    
    Kirt
    

    
    Hi, 
    I'm working on this problem with John. When we spoke with the customer
    today, we had him try a different 10BT/10B2 converter (by another
    vendor). This one acted the same way. No activity at all on the
    controller. Netstat -i showed no input or output packets or errors.
    On startup, just the error about no link. 
    It appears that this particular controller DOES in fact care if there
    is a link signal or not. Customer has two systems with the same
    controller. Both behave identically. 
    
    You mentioned in a previous note that this does work with no link
    signal. Do you know what types of MAUs this does work with?
    And has it been tested on 4.0 with the 210400-aa rev 2.4? 
    
    thanks for your help on this!
    
    Cathy
    

    OK, WE HAVE THE ANSWER...
    
    The problem was that the customer did need a 'cross/over' cable between
    the ALPHA system and his 'digi-international' tp to thinwire converter.
    He did try both a straight thru and crossover, without success.  What
    he did not tell us was his 'cross/over' cable was a BN25H, not a BN24F
    style cable.  
    
    BN25H = Unshielded Office Cable for TP FDDI  (Cat 5)
    BN24F - 10BaseT Office Cable
    
    The customer has customarily used the cat 5 straight thru cables for 
    non-fddi twisted pair applications, but did not realize that the
    pinouts for cat 5 crossover are different than the twisted pair
    crossover.  I didn't know this, but now I do...  hope this helps
    others...
    
    Thanks to everyone on this for their help
    john wieland
    customer support center