ent vs en

invincible

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Jun 17, 2009, 6:27:46 AM6/17/09

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I am a little confused on the terminology IBM uses for interfaces.
Many places the interfaces are known as en and at many they are called
ent.

What I want to know is , are these totally interchangeable ? Do the
names mean same for the same number. Like ent0 is same as en0 . If so
is there any rule when one is used in few commands and other at other.

Example : In lsdev -Ccadapter , I see them as ent but ifconfig -a
they are as en !!!!

abcserver:root:/home/root # lsdev -Ccadapter
ent0 Available Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent1 Available Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent2 Available Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent3 Available 03-08 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X Adapter
ent4 Available 03-09 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X Adapter
ent5 Available 04-08 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X Adapter
ent6 Available 04-09 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X Adapter
ent7 Available EtherChannel / IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation
ent9 Available 07-08 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X Adapter
ent10 Available 07-09 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X Adapter

eventmgr1:root:/home/root # ifconfig -a
en1:

en3:

en7:

en2:
en4:
en0:
en6:
en10:

Ciao.

Uli Link

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Jun 17, 2009, 6:37:03 AM6/17/09

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invincible schrieb:

ent* are the physical interfaces
en* are the logical interfaces for running TCP/IP

for more confusion: there may be also et* logical interfaces using a
different ethernet frame type. But there are quite obsolete for more
than a decade now.

--
ULi

invincible

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Jun 17, 2009, 7:56:05 AM6/17/09

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> ULi- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Are the Physical and logical interface linked ?

I mean ent1 corresponds to en1 ?

Hajo Ehlers

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Jun 17, 2009, 10:12:30 AM6/17/09

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On Jun 17, 1:56 pm, invincible <imanuk2...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Are the Physical and logical interface linked ?
>
> I mean ent1 corresponds to en1 ?

At least on AIX 5.3 it does. ( tested )

Hajo

steven_nospam at Yahoo! Canada

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Jun 17, 2009, 10:44:36 AM6/17/09

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On Jun 17, 6:27 am, invincible <imanuk2...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I am a little confused on the terminology IBM uses for interfaces.
> Many places the interfaces are known as en and at many they are called
> ent.

The ent* name refers to the actual physical card (or portion thereof)
installed in the system. The en* will show up as "Defined" until you
actually configure the interface, and then will become "Available".
Both of these are actually listed if you look at the results from
lsdev command:

# lsdev -C|grep ^en
en0 Available 07-08 Standard Ethernet Network
Interface
en1 Defined 07-09 Standard Ethernet Network
Interface
ent0 Available 07-08 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X
Adapter (14108902)
ent1 Available 07-09 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-X
Adapter (14108902)

The ent* is the Ethernet Adapter (smit eadap) that you can adjust
values on, such as whether the adapter will Auto-Negotiate speed or
operate at a set speed.

The en* is the TCP/IP interface (smit chif) that has very little
adjustments allowed to it. You can only only control the maximum IP
packet size. Think of it as the driver for the network card.