MAC address learning on 4507

[dongdong.wu]

I have a D600 connected on FE port of a 4507. My understanding is that the switch removes the MAC from CAM after some idle period with no traffic on the port.As the aging time expires, I lost the MAC of the D600 with no result on the output of "show mac-address-table interface faX/X". Is there any way to push the traffic on the port so that I can have the wanted MAC?

Dongdong

[dongdong.wu]

Hi GP, thanks for your kindly note. I want to try to replay the worst condition you mentioned on my spare module. Is there any suggestions? Though the URL has been studied before my move here I rate your post as the the most helpful. :)

Cheers!

Dong

[pkhatri]

Hi Dongdong,

You could increase the aging timer on the port using 'mac-address-table aging-time' or create a static MAC entry using 'mac-address-table static'.

Hoep that helps,

Paresh.

[dongdong.wu]

Hi Paresh, thank you for the reply. It's good point to avoid of losing the wanterd MAC by static style. You know yesterday I have to swap the bad module with spare parts as the log alerting as "%C4K_LINECARDMGMTPROTOCOL-4-INITIALTIMEOUTWARNING: Astro 6-2(Fa6/9-16) - management request timed out.

" frequently. The D600 is connected right to the Fa6/11 which is among the illed ones. After I finished the change, I just wanted to do a ping test to the machine to verify if the transient connectivity error had recovered per the change. I bumped my head against of forgetting the IP of the DHCPed D600 while it's connected stably on the port. (It was non-office hour and user had gone.No access to the client machine.) Here is the whole story where the problem comes out. My conclusion is that the SWITCH is only a 2nd layer machine with no function of PINGing the port or PINGing the MAC???Say I want to manually generate a frame is the impossible mission on the IOS or CAToS? :)

Best regards,

Dong

[Georg Pauwen · Accepted solution]

Hello Dong,

on a side note, the error message you have seen ("%C4K_LINECARDMGMTPROTOCOL-4-INITIALTIMEOUTWARNING: Astro 6-2(Fa6/9-16) - management request timed out") does not necessarily mean that the hardware is faulty. On the linecards, usually the ports are grouped in blocks of 8 (1-8, 9-16, etc.). Each block of 8 ports shares the backplane bandwidth with each other. If one of the devices connected to a port group uses a lot of bandwidth, it might result in packet drops for the other devices connected to the same port group. Check the document below for more details, it might be worth reading.

By the way, when you shut/no shut the port where the Dell 600 is connected to, this should usually generate some traffic that would ´wake up´ the client...

Cisco Catalyst 4000 Series Switches

Understanding and Troubleshooting Astro/Lemans/NiceR Timeouts on Catalyst 4000/4500 Series Switches

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps663/products_tech_note09186a00801c9221.shtml

HTH,

GP

[ankurbhasin]

Hi Dong,

Just try to ping this device form the switch or infact any device on the network and it will learn the mac address again.

Also if ping is not supported for this device then try to access this device or try to access any other device from this machine and mac entry will be learned again.

HTH

Ankur

[dongdong.wu]

Thank you Ankur! Please have a look at my reply to Paresh. You could have got I have not access to the D600. :)

regards,

dong