mii-tool : SIOCGMIIPHY on ‘eth0′ failed: Operation not supported

mii-tool is a Unix command allowing to modify the Network Interface Controller (NIC) parameters.

[edit]Example

To display the current parameters:

 mii-tool
eth0: no autonegotiation, 100baseTx-HD, link ok

To force the network speed to 1 Gb/s, and the duplex in full on the port 1 (eth0):

 mii-tool -F 1000baseTx-FD eth0
 mii-tool
eth0: 1 000 Mbit, full duplex, link ok

problem in VMware Workstation 8.0

SIOCGMIIPHY on ‘eth0′ failed: Operation not supported

When run mii-tool on client Linux on VMWare Workstation:

hb1:~# mii-tool
SIOCGMIIPHY on 'eth0' failed: Operation not supported
no MII interfaces found

The situation:
VMware ESX Server supports the following virtual network devices:
- vlance – AMD Lance PCNet32 ethernet adapter
- e1000 – Intel e1000 ethernet adapter
- vmxnet – VMware high speed virtual ethernet adapter
see: http://www.sanbarrow.com/vmx/vmx-network.html

hb1:~# modinfo -d e1000
Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver

hb1:~# modinfo -d vmxnet
VMware Virtual Ethernet driver

hb1:~# modinfo -d pcnet32
Driver for PCnet32 and PCnetPCI based ethercards

Which modules are existing?

hb1:~# modprobe -l | egrep 'pcnet32|vmxnet|e1000'
/lib/modules/2.6.26-2-686/misc/vmxnet3.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.26-2-686/misc/vmxnet.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.26-2-686/kernel/drivers/net/e1000e/e1000e.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.26-2-686/kernel/drivers/net/e1000/e1000.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.26-2-686/kernel/drivers/net/pcnet32.ko

Which modules are loaded?

hb1:~# lsmod | egrep 'pcnet32|vmxnet|e1000'
vmxnet                 18100  0 

Only module vmxnet is loaded!
 

Now load module e1000:

hb1:~# modprobe e1000
hb1:~# lsmod | egrep 'pcnet32|vmxnet|e1000'
e1000                 102656  0
vmxnet                 18100  0 

Shutdown guest machine, open file virtualmachinename.vmx per notepad edit:
under line ethernet0.present = "TRUE"

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"

and do it for all NICs ethernet[0]…ethernet[n]

Power on the Linux client, run mii-tool and ethtool again:

hb1:~# mii-tool
eth0: negotiated 1000baseT-FD flow-control, link ok

hb1:~# ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
 Supported ports: [ TP ]
 Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                         100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                         1000baseT/Full
 Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
 Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                         100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                         1000baseT/Full
 Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
 Speed: 1000Mb/s
 Duplex: Full
 Port: Twisted Pair
 PHYAD: 0
 Transceiver: internal
 Auto-negotiation: on
 Supports Wake-on: d
 Wake-on: d
 Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
 Link detected: yes