The ETH ports represent the Ethernet (10 Mbit/sec ) adapters drivers for TP and Thin Coax wiring. They provide transmission and receiving services of frames over LAN, in other words they deal with the physical layer management and Media Access Control (MAC): collisions, retransmissions, MAC address filtering.
The ETH driver supports IP, ARP, RARP protocols.
The Ethernet port is labelled within the Abilis CPx with the acronym "ETH" and it is provided with the parameters described in this section.
Here is an example on how to display the ETH port parameters. Shown values are the default ones.
[15:03:33] ABILIS_CPX: D P PO:ETH
PO:56 - Not Saved (SAVE CONF), Not Refreshed (INIT) --------------------------
ETH ------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOG:NO ip-rxbuf:25 arp-rxbuf:5
To activate any change made on the lowercase parameters, the system has to be started again, on the contrary for the uppercase
parameters it is enough to submit the initialisation command INIT PO:.
Changes made on the parameter LOG: are immediately active.
The "Not Saved (SAVE CONF)" message is displayed every time the port configuration is modified but not saved with the SAVE CONF command.
The "Not Refreshed (INIT)" message is displayed every time the port configuration is modified but not refreshed with the INIT PO: command.
| LOG: | Events logging activation and generation of alarm signals |
| DS | NO, D, S, A, L, T, ALL, +E |
Usually this parameter makes possible to activate/deactivate logging functionalities of meaningful events of the port as well as the detection and signalling of alarms in case of critical events.
The following table shows the available options and the related functionalities usable by the parameter:
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| D | Recording of the driver state changes and/or the meaningful events in Debug Log |
| S | Recording of the driver state changes and/or the meaningful events in the System Log |
| A | Periodic detection of possible alarms. The detected alarms can be displayed the command ALARM VIEW or by the analogous command available on the UTILITY of the LCD display on the front panel |
| L | On alarm detection, acoustic signal generation plus a message on the LCD display. This function depends on activation of alarms detection by the "A" option |
| T | Generation by the Agent SNMP of Abilis CPX of SNMP traps corresponding to any change of the driver state and/or occurring of meaningful events |
Beside the already described options the following values are also allowed:
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| NO | It means that all the logging functionalities, alarms detection and generation, above mentioned, are disabled. |
| ALL | It means that all the logging functionalities, alarms detection and generation, above mentioned, are enabled. |
| +E | This option added to one or more of the previous ones, extends its (their) set of meaningful events. The value "ALL+E" activates all the options and extends the set of meaningful events. The value "NO+E" is meaningless so it is ignored. |
Options can be combined together.
Some examples:
By using the characters "+" and "-" as prefix of one or more options is possible to add or delete one or more functionalities without setting from the scratch the value of the parameters.
Some examples:
The changes made on this parameter are immediately activated, without the need of initialization commands.
| ip-rxbuf: | Number of receive buffers for IP |
| 25 | 1 - 255 |
It sets the number of receive buffers for IP.
| arp-rxbuf: | Number of receive buffers for ARP |
| 5 | 1 - 255 |
It sets the number of receive buffers for ARP.
How to check state and statistics of the ETH ports by the command D S.
[18:58:20] ABILIS_CPX: D S PO:ETH
PO:55 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
ETH STATE:READY MAC-ADDR:00-40-33-55-AE-8B
-----------|---INPUT---|--OUTPUT---|-----------|---INPUT---|--OUTPUT---|
SUCC | 0| 0|CHAR | 0| 0|
BROADCAST | 0| 0|MULTICAST | 0| 0|
NOBUF | 0| |LOST-IP | 0| |
LOST-ARP | 0| |LOST-RARP | 0| |
| | |N-COLL | | 0|
FCS | 0| |L-COLL | | 0|
RX-OVR | 0| |E-COLL | | 0|
TX-UND | | 0|DEFERRED | | 0|
CARR | 0| |ALIGN | 0| |
CARD-RESET | 0| |SHORT | 0| 0|
SQE-ERR | 0| |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to display extended statistics of the ETH ports by the command D SE.
[18:58:33] ABILIS_CPX: D SE PO:ETH
PO:55 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
ETH --- Cleared 000:00:00:22 ago, on 21/07/2004 at 18:58:13 ----------------
-----------|---INPUT---|--OUTPUT---|-----------|---INPUT---|--OUTPUT---|
SUCC | 0| 0|CHAR | 0| 0|
BROADCAST | 0| 0|MULTICAST | 0| 0|
NOBUF | 0| |LOST-IP | 0| |
LOST-ARP | 0| |LOST-RARP | 0| |
| | |N-COLL | | 0|
FCS | 0| |L-COLL | | 0|
RX-OVR | 0| |E-COLL | | 0|
TX-UND | | 0|DEFERRED | | 0|
CARR | 0| |ALIGN | 0| |
CARD-RESET | 0| |SHORT | 0| 0|
SQE-ERR | 0| |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The information "Cleared DDD:HH:MM:SS ago, at DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM:SS", referred by the extended statistics, shows the time interval elapsed from the last reset of statistics (by the format "days:hours:minutes:seconds") and date/time of its execution (by the format "day:month:year" and "hours:minutes:seconds").
| STATE: | Current state of the ETH port driver |
| DOWN, READY, TXDISABLED, HALTED, FAILED, ERR |
It shows the current state of the ETH port driver.
| Driver | States | Meaning | Values shown in: | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| System Log | Debug Log | Display LCD | |||
| ETH | DOWN | Port is not active | DN | ||
| READY | Port is active | RD | |||
| TXDISABLED | The transmission has been disabled due to a fatal error | TD | |||
| HALTED | Port halted because of a fatal error | HL | |||
| FAILED | Port is not working because of an initialization error | FL | |||
| ERR | Software error. Contact Abilis assistance. | NA | |||
| MAC-ADDR: | MAC address of the driver Ethernet |
| 6 hexadecimals digits separated by "-" (minus) |
This parameter shows the MAC (Media Access Control) address used by the Ethernet port driver.
MAC addresses are usually made of a sequence of 6 octets (48bits) and they are displayed as a sequence of 6 hexadecimals digits
separated by the character "-" (minus).
| SUCC: | Number of frames successfully received |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter SUCC (INPUT/OUTPUT) shows the number of frames successfully received/sent.
| CHAR: | Number of received/sent characters |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter CHAR (INPUT/OUTPUT) shows the number of characters received/sent.
| BROADCAST: | Number of "broadcast" frames received/sent |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter BROADCAST (INPUT/OUTPUT) is incremented every time a "broadcast" frame is received/sent.
The "broadcast" frames are sent to all the LAN Ethernet stations.
| MULTICAST: | Number of "multicast" frames received/sent |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter MULTICAST (INPUT/OUTPUT) is incremented every time a "multicast" frame is received/sent.
The "multicast" frames are sent to a group of the LAN Ethernet stations.
| NOBUF: | Number of frames discarded because of the unavailability of receiving buffer |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter NOBUF (INPUT) is incremented every time a frame is discarded because of the unavailability of receiving buffers.
High values of this parameter compared to the overall data exchanged could mean that the Abilis system is overloaded, so that it is convenient to contact the seller and consider to upgrade it.
| LOST-IP: | Number of received frames discarded because of the unavailability of IP buffers |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter LOST-IP (INPUT) is incremented every time a received frames is discarded because of the unavailability of IP buffers.
| LOST-ARP: | Number of received frames discarded because of the unavailability of ARP buffers |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter LOST-ARP (INPUT) is incremented every time a received frames is discarded because of the unavailability of ARP buffers.
| LOST-RARP: | Number of received frames discarded because of the unavailability of RARP buffers |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter LOST-RARP (INPUT) is incremented every time a received frames is discarded because of the unavailability of RARP buffers.
| N-COLL: | Number of "normal" collisions |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter N-COLL (OUTPUT) is incremented every time a "normal collision" occurs.
Collisions, in a Ethernet network, are an absolutely normal occurrence, but if their number grows up to the overall amount of data exchanged, then it should be considered the network segmentation, for example through a SWITCH.
LANs highly congested present a high number of "extended collisions" (E-COLL).
| L-COLL: | Number of "late" collisions |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter L-COLL (OUTPUT) is incremented every time a "late collision" occurs.
Significative values of this parameter could mean:
| E-COLL: | Number of "extended" collisions |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter E-COLL (OUTPUT) is incremented every time an "extended collision" occurs.
If the number of collisions grows up to the overall amount of data exchanged, then it should be considered the network segmentation, for example through a SWITCH.
| FCS: | Number of received frames with a wrong FCS |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter FCS (INPUT) is incremented every time the FCS (or CRC) check procedure, of each frame, fails.
High values, especially if growing, of this counter could mean a bad quality of the
transmission line, corrupting the received data; it surely points out errors into the
received data. A bad quality turns into a performance lowering and into possible breaks
out of the link.
| RX-OVR: | Number of "overrun" occurred during reception |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter RX-OVR (INPUT) is incremented every time the communication board reports an "overrun" due to the received data. It occurs whenever the Ethernet driver, due to an excessive payload within the Abilis CPX, is not fast enough to take data from the communication board. Up to now, no Abilis CPX application gave such "overrun" problems, however if the value of this counter get more and more significative compared to the amount of data exchanged, it should be convenient to contact the seller and consider the Abilis CPX upgrade.
However, if high numbers of FCS are also detected, then it is more probable that the "overload" is caused by the excessive number of errors on the transmission line, which, as consequence, should be repaired.
| TX-UND: | Number of "underrun" occurred during transmission |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter TX-UND (OUTPUT) is incremented every time the communication board reports an "underrun" due to the sent DATA. In the actual implementation this counter has to always be zero, however if other values would be displayed, please contact the technical support.
| DEFERRED: | Number of deferred frames |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter DEFERRED (OUTPUT) is incremented every time a frame transmission is deferred.
This counter does not highlight particular problems.
| CARR: | Number of "carrier loss" in TP links |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter CARR (INPUT) shows the number of "carrier loss" in TP links.
it is normal that this counter increments every time the TP link is missing. Growing values, not due to intentional disconnections, could mean:
| ALIGN: | Number of "align error" |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter ALIGN (INPUT) shows the number of received frames with an align error.
Non-zero values could stand for problems in LAN station, or for a bad transmission line quality.
| CARD-RESET: | Number of "hardware restart" of the board |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter HW-RST (INPUT) is incremented every time the board is reinitialised during the normal working mode of the system.
Too high values of this parameters, especially if growing, could mean an imminent failure of the board.
| SHORT: | Number of too short frames |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter SHORT (INPUT) is incremented every time the length of the received Ethernet frame is shorter than 64 bytes. Non-zero values could stand for problems in LAN station, or for a bad transmission line quality.
The counter SHORT (OUTPUT) is incremented every time the "higher level port", such as IPLAN, requests to send a frame whose length is shorter than 64 bytes.
In the actual implementation this counter has to always be zero, however if other values would be displayed, please contact the technical support.
| SQE-ERR: | Number of "squelch error" |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 |
The counter SQ-ERR shows the number of "squelch errors" for AUI connections. But the AUI interface is not supported by the used adapter, so this parameter is meaningless.
The SNMP Agent of Abilis CPX is able to generate traps owing to meaningful state changes pertinent to the ETH ports.
The traps listed below are generated when at least the "T" options are set in the LOG: parameter, corresponding to the basic SNMP traps generation functionality provided for ETH ports.
| Trap own code | Trap mnemonic | SNMP variables shown in the trap | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 39 | cxTrapEthDown | cxPortIndex, cxPortType, cxEthDiagState, sysUpTime |
The SNMP Agent of the Abilis CPX generates this kind of trap every time the ETH port driver leaves the READY state and reaches one of the following states: DOWN, TXDISABLED, HALTED, FAILED |
| 40 | cxTrapEthReady | cxPortIndex, cxPortType, cxEthDiagState, sysUpTime |
The SNMP Agent of the Abilis CPX generates this kind of trap every time the ETH port driver leaves one of the following states: DOWN, TXDISABLED, HALTED, FAILED and reaches the READY state |
| cxPortIndex | ETH port which the SNMP trap refers to |
| 0 - 999 |
This variable shows the CPX port number which the SNMP trap refers to.
| cxPortType | Type and description of the ETH port which the trap refers to |
| type - description |
This variable shows either the port type which the trap refers to (in this case ETH) and the description eventually associated to it.
| cxEthDiagState | Current state if the Ethernet port driver which the trap refers to |
| down(0), ready(1), txDisabled(2), halted(3), failed(4) |
This variable shows the current state of the ETH port driver which the trap refers to.
The following table shows the relationship among the state value stored in the SNMP variable and the ones obtained executing the
command D S.
| Value of the SNMP variable | Correspondent state of the ETH driver |
|---|---|
| down(0) | DOWN |
| ready(1) | READY |
| txDisabled(2) | TXDISABLED |
| halted(3) | HALTED |
| failed(4) | FAILED |
| sysUpTime | Elapsed time from the system start to the event occurrence |
| 0 - 4.294.967.295 or "ddd:hh:mm:ss" |
This variable stores the elapsed time (in cent of second) from the system start to the SNMP trap event occurrence.
This value is usually shown by the format "days:hours:minutes:seconds".
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