prom Port Flow Control Mode

1.3.6.1.4.1.2167.3.6.2.1.1.21

Flow control is used to prevent or reduce the dropping of frames due to the lack of buffer space. Overall, networks are more efficient when a sending station is asked to pause in its sending process, rather than having the transmitted frames dropped. Flow control is not as efficient when used in conjunction with a shared ports, i.e. when used with a repeater. Therefore, flow control is not recommended for a port connected to shared topologies. Flow control is most effective when the port is directly connected to an end-station, especially when connected to a server. Flow control is recommended for ports connected directly to end-stations. When the port is in half-duplex mode, back pressure is used to control the incoming flow. Back pressure essentially forces collisions for short periods of time. When the port is in full-duplex mode, IEEE 802.3 standard pause frames are used to control the incoming flow. Note that setting an ether-gigabit(4) port to enable-with-aggressive-backoff(3) results in an error.