multi-auth unmanaged switch/hub

[Tedwheat53]

Anyone doing mult-auth 802.1x with unmanaged switches? If so what model/brand are you using? And what model managed switch are you doing authentication. I'm worried about TCAM in 2960S

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[Jatin Katyal]

Well, with unmanaged even I've only seen 2960 but that too very less.  As we know that unmanaged switchs are plug-and-play, so you only need  to connect your computer or other network devices to the unmanaged  switch directly. However, with managed switches there are many, I've worked with. The two most common are 3750 and 3560 POE.

Jatin Katyal
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[Octavian Szolga]

From my point of view, a 2960 behaves very well compared with a 4500 that has some problems, like device tracking that causes some Win7 clients to think that there's an IP conflict on the network. Also, the newest IOS on 4500 is using an old form of some commands.

Anyway, regarding the unmanaged switch problem, isn't there a problem with 2960 and 2950 that can't forward dot1x/EAPOL frames?

[Tedwheat53]

Well. Not all unmanaged switches are the same. Some do not support multi-auth. We have 2960s and 3560 and 3750 we have few 4500. I'm looking to see if its feasible to run unmanaged switches off of managed switches but afraid of tcam exhaustion on 2960s. 3750has 10x tcam and a 4500 can handle even more. I understand some security risk but money talks.

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[Richard Atkin]

It's all going to come down to understanding how many unmanaged switches you're going to connect and how many MAC Addresses will be learnt through it...  There's a similar thread here that you might find useful;

https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/2198104

[Tedwheat53]

Thanks Richard,

I guess since Its such a complex algorithm ill just have to monitor the switch logs. We do a lot of stacking of 3750s so if I broke the stack apart I'd have more tcam. I know 4500 has some 16000 ACEs. so that's always an option over stacking.

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