Flow control is a mechanism used on Ethernet networks to slow the flow of traffic to prevent a receiving node from becoming overwhelmed. Implemented at the data link layer, it enables such a receiving node to send a message to other relevant switches or hosts to slow their data transfer rate. Ethernet flow control was originally implemented to address cases where network interface controllers (NICs) lacked sufficient buffer space to keep up with traffic flows. Today, it’s more likely to be used to address network congestion in a switch, such as when traffic comes in over a higher speed link than the one where it goes out. It can also be useful when traffic is coming in from multiple high-speed connections and threatens to fill the switch buffer. This document details how to configure flow control on Gigabit Ethernet ports on a white box switch running the Pica8 PICOS network operating system.

Command Syntax
set interface gigabit-ethernet <port> ether-options flow-control <bool>
delete interface gigabit-ethernet <port> ether-options flow-control

Parameter
• <port> ethernet switching port identifier,the valid ports range 1-52
• <bool> enable flow control

true enable flow control
false disable flow control. This is default configuration.

Example
• This example is to configure ge-1/1/3 port in flow control:

admin@XorPlus# set interface gigabit-ethernet ge-1/1/3 ether-options flow-control true
admin@XorPlus# commit

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