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Access to low level PHY registers of ethernet card

SB15
Beginner
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Hello,

I'm using ethernet card which is based on Intel 82546 chipset,

I would like to know how is it possible to access (read) low level registers of the chipset such as CRC error counter

and other information thath can be used to debug physical layer problems.

It is also known as MIB's.

Appreciate for your help

Shai

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st4
New Contributor III
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Hi ShaiB,

Thank you for the post. I need to check on this.

rgds,

wb

 

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SB15
Beginner
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Hi,

Just updating that I found out that it is possible to get information (and possibly control some) through the SNMP protocol on almost any Intel Network Interface Card.

BTW the driver I'm using is Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Dual Port Server Adapter.

Among the information there (in the MIB file) I found the genericAdapterTrafficStatsAttrEntry and also adapterRxErrors.

Now the question is if I really found what I was looking for,

Is these statistics comes from the NIC or from the OS?

Thanks.

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st4
New Contributor III
584 Views

Hi ShaiB,

Thank you for the update and good to know you are able to find the answer. Let me further check.

rgds,

wb

 

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st4
New Contributor III
584 Views

 

Hi ShaiB,

Good day. The stats came from the NIC. MIB stands for management information base which stores the variables that can be accessed by network management system via SNMP.

rgds

wb

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SB15
Beginner
584 Views

Thanks a lot for your reply.

Now I'm trying to figure out if this RxError counter applies for CRC Error Count or Alignment Error Count or Symbol Error Count, Etc...

In the MIB file the description of this counter is:

"Total number of packets received with errors

(packets that failed to reach the protocol)."

I guess I will need to simulate each error somehow to figure this out, unless someone knows the answer.

Cheers,

Shai

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