How to detect the physical connected state of a network cable/connector?

Question

In a Linux environment, I need to detect the physical connected or disconnected state of an RJ45 connector to its socket. Preferably using BASH scripting only.

The

Answer 1

I use this command to check a wire is connected:

cd /sys/class/net/
grep "" eth0/operstate

If the result will be up or down. Sometimes it shows unknown, then you need to check

eth0/carrier

It shows 0 or 1

Answer 2

Somehow if you want to check if the ethernet cable plugged in linux after the commend:" ifconfig eth0 down". I find a solution: use the ethtool tool.

#ethtool -t eth0
The test result is PASS
The test extra info:
Register test  (offline)         0
Eeprom test    (offline)         0
Interrupt test (offline)         0
Loopback test  (offline)         0
Link test   (on/offline)         0

if cable is connected,link test is 0,otherwise is 1.

Answer 3

You can use ethtool:

$ sudo 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: umbg
    Wake-on: g
    Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
    Link detected: yes

To only get the Link status you can use grep:

$ sudo ethtool eth0 | grep Link
    Link detected: yes

Answer 4

On the low level, these events can be caught using rtnetlink sockets, without any polling. Side note: if you use rtnetlink, you have to work together with udev, or your program may get confused when udev renames a new network interface.

The problem with doing network configurations with shell scripts is that shell scripts are terrible for event handling (such as a network cable being plugged in and out). If you need something more powerful, take a look at my NCD programming language, a programming language designed for network configurations.

For example, a simple NCD script that will print "cable in" and "cable out" to stdout (assuming the interface is already up):

process foo {
    # Wait for device to appear and be configured by udev.
    net.backend.waitdevice("eth0");
    # Wait for cable to be plugged in.
    net.backend.waitlink("eth0");
    # Print "cable in" when we reach this point, and "cable out"
    # when we regress.
    println("cable in");   # or pop_bubble("Network cable in.");
    rprintln("cable out"); # or rpop_bubble("Network cable out!");
                           # just joking, there's no pop_bubble() in NCD yet :)
}

(internally, net.backend.waitlink() uses rtnetlink, and net.backend.waitdevice() uses udev)

The idea of NCD is that you use it exclusively to configure the network, so normally, configuration commands would come in between, such as:

process foo {
    # Wait for device to appear and be configured by udev.
    net.backend.waitdevice("eth0");
    # Set device up.
    net.up("eth0");
    # Wait for cable to be plugged in.
    net.backend.waitlink("eth0");
    # Add IP address to device.
    net.ipv4.addr("eth0", "192.168.1.61", "24");
}

The important part to note is that execution is allowed to regress; in the second example, for instance, if the cable is pulled out, the IP address will automatically be removed.

Answer 5

You want to look at the nodes in

/sys/class/net/

I experimented with mine:

Wire Plugged in:

eth0/carrier:1
eth0/operstate:unknown

Wire Removed:

eth0/carrier:0
eth0/operstate:down

Wire Plugged in Again:

eth0/carrier:1
eth0/operstate:up

_{Side Trick: harvesting all properties at once the easy way:}

grep "" eth0/* 

This forms a nice list of key:value pairs.

Answer 6

cat /sys/class/net/ethX is by far the easiest method.

The interface has to be up though, else you will get an invalid argument error.

So first:

ifconfig ethX up

Then:

cat /sys/class/net/ethX