JL> Which is, IMO, a bug, albeit a kind of specification bug, given the JL> way the drivers tend to be written. An Ethernet link can be up or JL> down independent of the logical up/down state of the interface, and JL> with most drivers the link state is hidden as long as the interface JL> is logically down.
Well, downing an interface is actually used to power down part/most of the NIC so you definitely should not expect link state knowledge from a downed interface.
UP & no addr assigned is the state that you probably want for link state monitoring etc.
The definition of "down" isn't very consistent. If a driver actually powers down an interface when down, then it's appropriate to report the link as down; it is down.
But e1000 (for example) does not power down the interface, and the link goes up and down (as reflected by the status LEDs) as normal. The driver simply reports the link as down regardless of the actual link state.
--
/Jonathan Lundell.
-
: send the line "unsubscribe linux-net" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
