Connecting twisted-pair ethernet ports originally required care in choosing either straight or crossover cables. Later, many ethernet ports added the feature that they could be configured to accept either cable pinout. Some ports are even smart enough to detect, or autosense, the pinout they should use.

This Administrative object allows users to request the port adopt a specific pinout, or to have the port autosense it.

The value notSupported(1) indicates that this port cannot dynamically alter its pinout through this object.

The value mdi(2) is used to connect with a straight cable to mdix ports such as those found on hubs, switches and routers.

The value mdix(3) is used to connect with a straight cable to mdi ports such as those found on workstations.

The value autoSense(4) indicates this port should automatically detect and change to the necessary pinout.

This object has a corresponding Operational value which reports the actual pinout state. In certain situations, the Operational value might differ from the Administrative.