From owner-freebsd-net  Sat Mar 10 13: 7: 3 2001
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Subject: Re: call for testers: port aggregation netgraph module
In-Reply-To: <200103102042.f2AKgjC03194@aslan.scsiguy.com> from "Justin T. Gibbs" at "Mar 10, 2001 01:42:45 pm"
To: gibbs@scsiguy.com (Justin T. Gibbs)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:07:00 -0800 (PST)
Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, net@FreeBSD.ORG
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From: wpaul@FreeBSD.ORG (Bill Paul)
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> >Each link is checked once every second to see if the link is still up.
> >An attempt to send a packet over a dead link will cause the packet to
> >be shifted over to the next link in the bundle.
> 
> Any chance this can be done through an async event rather
> than by polling?

If there was, I would have done it.

MII transceivers can't send an interrupt back through the MAC unless the
MAC supports it, and many don't. Consequently, the MII spec says nothing
about async notification of anything. You have to poll. Resistance is
futile.

Gigabit MII transceivers are another matter. Polling and gigabit speeds
don't go to gether very well. All of the GMII transceivers I've seen
(Tigon and SysKonnect cards) have an signal pin of some kind that's wired
to an external interrupt source pin on the MAC.

-Bill

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