Sniffing Full or Half duplex ?

[Max5Pier]

Hi,

Is there a way to know if a network is at half or full-duplex with Sniffer Pro? I know its possible, but I just can't figure it out by myself.

Thanks

 

[rn4it]

From my understanding, a laptop with sniffer pro would only listen in half duplex. So in order to find config setting on a switch, you would need to enter the switch (ie SNMP). However, there are probably add on both Hardware and software, that would be able to pull this.

 

[Max5Pier]

I use the Full-duplex pod to capture, but it still does not tell me if the signal is efectively full or half duplex...

Any other tools out there I could use to get what I need ?

Thx

 

[mpennac]

On a twisted pair Ethernet connection, the only difference between a full duplex connection and a half duplex connection is the rules the devices on each end use when transmitting.

With both full and half duplex two pairs of wire are used, one for transmit and one for receive. One method for determining the duplex setting is to look at the Fast Link Pulse sent by each end. This will only be present if the nodes are set to auto-detect. Additionally, the analysis tool must be able to read this Fast Link Pulse. The only tool I know of that will read the FLP is the Fluke NetTool.

If the nodes are forced to full or half duplex, there is really no way to determine the duplex settings by looking at the packets on the wire.

mpennac

 

[Max5Pier]

Thats what I figured...

The Fluke vendor also told me that, but its nice to have a second opinion.

Thank you for your time.