Full Duplex

[Yakko]

WS-12-250-DC / AC version 1.5.5(i am aware of 1.5.8) Both have a problem that we keep seeing. We use mikrotik routers and UBNT sectors and bh's some mimo's as well. About 90% of the connections are NOT full Duplex. The cables test good, some are longer than others clear up to 200ft. The connections to the mikrotik are always short patch cables 6ft max. We started noticing the max through put of 500mb up and down and concluded the problem is the netonix interfaces are not showing full duplex.

This is a huge problem we have managed to negate the problem sort of by bonding 2 cables to the mikrotik. However this dosnt fix 1GB BH's as they only have 1 cable. If this isnt fixed we may have to move away from netonix's. I'm unsure why some towers have some full duplex and some have none. But no tower we have new or not has full duplex.

[mike99]

Full duplex issue are normally cause by one side beeing configure to auto and the other configured with forced speed and duplex. Since autoneg can detect forced speed but can't detect forced duplex, autoneg set duplex to default value and the default is half duplex. Make sure both side are either set to auto or either forced.

[Yakko]

We very rarely set them manually. Considering that this is a problem with 90% of are network I'd say its a problem with the way auto negotiation is used on the netonix. Considering that its happening on both UBNT and Mikrotikes . Here's a picture of the problem. As you can see the mikrotik is set to auto and even see's full duplex but fails to see it on the netonix the other devices are all ubnt with several not in full duplex.

[Stephen]

This has been added to the list of things to investigate. But autoneg has been a feature of Netonix for a long time and this is the first I've heard of this being a potential software issue. Has this worked for you before and perhaps a version change you could point out occurred where you noticed this?

[mike99]

Do you mean the 2 arrows next to the speed ? If so, if you over mouse it, you will see this mean flow control is enable, not that the port is in full duplex mode.
P.S. : Disable flow control if your not familiar with it.

[Yakko]

Hmm, Yes I have miss identified the arrows. I see that there flow control. However after some research I found this image. From 2015 on this post here
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=452

This shows a interface of 1G-F which is exactly like 100M-F This makes sense to me. However at some point it looks like it switched to just 1G with no indication if its half or full. My testing shows that the cable to the mikrotiks are maxing at 1G-Half with 50/50 split for Receive and Transmit 500mb/500mb this is the same on several towers. As far as i can tell I have no way to see if a cable is full duplex or half not even in the details of the port. Is there something im missing? I read some of the post listed which has some issues with flow control. Specifically AP need flow control and BH's should never but no way to separate because the router then needs flow control. Which means the BH's would receive pause frames if it goes into netonix even if flow is unchecked on them? I think i read that right. Although the guide is from 2015 and recently updated. Is there something like flow control causing the 1G-Half and is there a way to tell 1G-F/1G-H?

[mike99]

Just check the forced speed options available, the're no gigabit half and gigabit full, only gigabit. I presume gigabit is only full duplex on this switch.. Half duplex is legacy and was almost left out of the gigabit standard and was finally left out of the 10G standard.

Netonix switch can easily do 1G without issue. Your Mikrotik is software based and performance can be affected easily by adding rules. With Netonix, that not the case. Everything is handled at hardware level and performance won't be affected, no matter the number of features or rules enabled.

Also, if it was for half / full duplex issue, you wouldn't be able to do 500 / 500 Mb/s. They're would be collision on the cable and the more bandwidth that would go through the more the performance would be affected.

For flow control, Netonix recommended it at first but in the end, most don't understand flow control, that is a poorly design protocol, and it was causing more issues that is that fixing. Now, flow control is disable by default on newer firmware but it could help to activate it in some situations. I've seen horrible situation with flow-control and Mikrotik and would stay far away of flow-control while using Mikrotik as router. Don't forget Chris was recommending flow control while using Cisco router. He already published a design of how he configured flow control.