ifplugstatus(8) System Manager's Manual ifplugstatus(8)NAME
ifplugstatus - A link beat detection tool
SYNOPSIS
ifplugstatus [options] [INTERFACE]
DESCRIPTION
ifplugstatus is an utility which may be used to detect the link status of a local Linux ethernet device, much in the same way mii-diag,
mii-tool and ethtool work. In fact it supports all three different APIs these three tools use. In addition it supports link checking with
the IFF_RUNNING interface flag, which most modern drivers (not only ethernet) support, and association status checking with the wireless
extension API for WLAN devices.
The APIs are tried in the following order:
First the newest API: SIOCETHTOOL (aka ethtool API)
Second the next older API: SIOCGMIIREG (aka mii-diag API)
Than the WLAN API: wireless extension (aka iwconfig API)
Followed by the cleanest API: IFF_RUNNING (aka ifconfig API)
The oldest API (SIOCPRIV aka mii-tool API) is not tested since it is obsolete.
ifplugstatus may be used in shell script since it returns the current status as return value. It is especially useful to detect the avail-
able APIs on the used network driver. (Option -v)
OPTIONS
You may specify an ethernet device on the command line. Otherwise ifplugstatus will check all available network interfaces.
-a | --auto
Enable interface automatically before querying (default: off)
-h | --help
Show help
-q | --quiet
Decrease verbosity by one. If the verbosity is < 0, no text will be shown, only the return value is relevant; if the verbosity is =
0, a terse status will be shown; If the verbosity is > 0, detailed information about the used API is returned. (By default the ver-
bosity is 0)
-v | --verbose
Increase verbosity by one. See option -q.
-V | --version
Show version
RETURN VALUES
0 Success
1 Failure
2 Link beat detected (only available when an interface is specified)
3 Unplugged (same here)
AUTHOR
ifplugd was written by Lennart Poettering <mzvscyhtq (at) 0pointer (dot) de>. ifplugd is available at
http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/ifplugd/
SEE ALSO mii-diag(8), mii-tool(8), ethtool(8), ifplugd(8)COMMENTS
This man page was written using xml2man(1) by Oliver Kurth.
Manuals User ifplugstatus(8)
Check Out this Related Man Page
MII-DIAG(8) System Manager's Manual MII-DIAG(8)NAME
mii-diag - Network adapter control and monitoring
SYNOPSIS
mii-diag [options]<interface>
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents briefly the mii-diag network adapter control and monitoring command. Addition documentation is available from
http://scyld.com/diag/index.html.
This mii-diag command configures, controls and monitors the transceiver management registers for network interfaces, and configures driver
operational parameters. For transceiver control mii-diag uses the Media Independent Interface (MII) standard (thus the command name). It
also has additional Linux-specific controls to communicate parameters such as message enable settings and buffer sizes to the underlying
device driver.
The MII standard defines registers that control and report network transceiver capabilities, link settings and errors. Examples are link
speed, duplex, capabilities advertised to the link partner, status LED indications and link error counters.
OPTIONS
The mii-diag command supports both single character and long option names. Short options use a single dash ('-') in front of the option
character. For options without parameters, multiple options may be concatenated after a single dash. Long options are prefixed by two
dashes ('--'), and may be abbreviated with a unique prefix. A long option may take a parameter of the form --arg=param or --arg param.
A summary of options is as follows.
-A, --advertise <speed|setting>
-F, --fixed-speed <speed|setting>
Speed is one of: 100baseT4, 100baseTx, 100baseTx-FD, 100baseTx-HD, 10baseT, 10baseT-FD, 10baseT-HD. For more precise control an
explicit numeric register setting is also allowed.
-a, --all-interfaces
Show the status of all interfaces. This option is not recommended with any other option, especially ones that change settings.
-s,--status
Return exit status 2 if there is no link beat.
-D Increase the debugging level. This may be used to understand the actions the command is taking.
-g, --read-parameters
Show driver-specific parameters.
-G, --set-parameters value[,value...]
Set driver-specific parameters. Set a adapter-specific parameters. Parameters are comma separated, with missing elements retaining
the existing value.
-v Increase the verbosity level. Additional "-v" options increase the level further.
-V Show the program version information.
-w, --watch
Continuously monitor the transceiver and report changes.
-? Emit usage information.
DESCRIPTION
Calling the command with just the interface name (which defaults to capabilities, configuration and current status.
The '--monitor' option allows scripting link beat changes.
This option is similar to --watch, but with lower overhead and simplified output. It polls the interface only once a second and the output
format is a single line per link change with three fixed words
<unknown|down||negotiating|up> <STATUS> <PARTNER-CAP>
Example output: mii-diag --monitor eth0
down 0x7809 0x0000
negotiating 0x7829 0x45e1
up 0x782d 0x45e1
down 0x7809 0x0000
This may be used as
mii-diag --monitor eth0 |
while read linkstatus bmsr linkpar; do
case $linkstatus in
up) ifup eth0 ;;
down) ifdown eth0 ;;
esac
done
It may be useful to shorten the DHCP client daemon timeout if it does not receive an address by adding the following setting to
/etc/sysconfig/network: DHCPCDARGS="-t 3"
SEE ALSO ether-wake(8),net-diag(8),mii-tool(8).
Addition documentation is available from http://scyld.com/diag/index.html.
KNOWN BUGS
The --all-interfaces option is quirky. There are very few settings that are usefully applied to all interfaces.
AUTHOR
The manual pages, diagnostic commands, and many of the underlying Linux network drivers were written by Donald Becker for the Scyld
Beowulf(tm) cluster system.
Scyld Beowulf September 9, 2003 MII-DIAG(8)