Introduction

Flow control is a ethernet mechanism to indicate a hosts is overwhelmed by incoming traffic. In such a situation, the host can send PAUSE frames to the otherside of the link. When such a PAUSE frame is received, the transmission of the send will be stopped for a specified amount of time. By default, we disable this on our ByteBlower switch en ByteBlower interfaces, because this influences the test and test results.

Enable flow control on the ByteBlower switch

Overview

Flow control can be enabled on the ByteBlower switches of the SMC brand.

In attachment, you can find a configfile that will enable flowcontrol on port 1-12.

To install this configfile, follow these instructions:

Connect your switch

Windows

1. Insert the console cable in your pc and in the console port of the switch.
2. Plug a network cable in port 26
3. Open a serial terminal application like putty or terminal.
4. Configure this application with the correct port speed ( 9600bps )

Linux

1. Insert the console cable in your pc and in the console port of the switch.
2. Plug a network cable in port 26
3. Start the program (possible sudo needed)
   minicom -o
4. Plug in the power cable of the switch to turn it on
5. Use Ctrl-A Z to get to Configure minicom -> Serial port setup and set the serial device to ttyS0
6. Get the right speed with <Ctrl>-<A>, <P> (9600) and set No flow control
   (Save as default config if you'd like)
7. Wait for the press ENTER to start session message before you continue.

Then you should place the attached config file on a tftp server in your network.

Install the configuration file

With these commands, you can then load the config file on the switch:

copy tftp startup-config
TFTP server IP address : <tftp_ip>
Source configuration file name: smc.24.flowcontrol.conf
Startup configuration file name: [startup1.cfg]
(extra check)
show startup-config
(reboot switch)
reload

Now you have flow control on port 1-12, and no flow control on port 13-24.