Setting Ethernet port modes

[Tony Wasson]

>I will be assembling machines with multiple network cards but I will need
to be able to >individually customize the mode of each Ethernet port.  For
example, one machine might have >three Ethernet cards but eth0 is
100/full, eth1 is 100/half, and eth2 might be auto sense.

>One solution that I have heard of uses three different network cards each
with their own >driver.  Each driver is manually set which allows each
port to be customized.  However, I will >be using standardized equipment
and each network card will be identical and have the same >driver.  So
this option will not work for me.

>Can the kernel be tweaked to allow loading multiple copies of the same
driver each pointed at >a different port?  Can each port be set manually
to a different setting?  Is there some hidden >config file that does this
of which I am not aware?  Any ideas are welcome.

I am not a guru. I believe this depends on the driver you use. Many
drivers support multiple instances of the software. I have mii-diag and
friends to set Duplex, Speed and Auto Negotiation settings. You should be
able to set these options when you call the module.

Example:  insmod tulip options=0,10
http://www.scyld.com/network/tulip.html

I guess I am scratching my head as to why you want to complicate your
setup. Throwing all these options sounds fine now, but who's going to
remember why each option was thrown when something breaks late at night?
I'd test Auto Negotiation against your switches and as long as it works
(lots of CRC/FCS errors under load indicate it isn't working) leave it
alone.

My $.02
Tony Wasson