Dedicated Management Port on 7304 NSE-150

[technical]

This may sound like a stupid question but I am being forced to ask! Can the dedicated fast ethernet port on the 7304 NSE-150 be used as a normal router port or is it (as the name implies) for management only? If so what are the drawbacks?

[Marvin Rhoads · Accepted solution]

It is as the name implies - management only.

Reference the configuration and installation guide (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/routers/7300/install_and_upgrade/7304/7304_fru/7304_nse_icg/3967ov2.html) which states, in part:

"The NSE-150 has an RJ-45 media port that provides 10/100-Mbps connectivity. It is not used for regular traffic. It is used to connect to a network management station and for downloading images. You should not switch to or from this port."

Hope this helps. Please rate this post if it does.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

NB:

Another engineer didn't read this find print for a 7304 NSE-100 and configured it for routing. The 10/100 port did route, but very, very poor peformance (it may have driven CPU to 100% too).

I.e., reason for the restriction, might be not so much that you can't, just the port wasn't architected for production traffic forwarding.