LLDP Avaya 9600 Series Phones

[dpc-itsupport]

Starting to think I should have gone with a different vendor, having issues getting the switch to play nice with LLDP and the phone.  I have opened a case but here are my details.  I actually do this for my day job but support my church after hours and we have upgraded all of the switches with POE for a new IP Office implementation. 

I am running a mix of SG300-28P switches and one sg500-52P switch.  I have a pretty straight forward configuration, data vlan is untagged with the voice being tagged, e.g. the ports are setup as trunks with the native(pvid) vlan for data and voice for tagged.  All of the Smartports, OUI stuff has been turned off even the auto voice vlan, I manually created a LLDP network policy with the voice vlan identified and qos that I wanted then applied that policy to the ports and of course LLDP is enabled.  I am also running the latest cisco code, in the beginning I didn't see any LLDP information coming from the phone so I upgraded the firmware to the latest Avaya has released, model is 9608. 

Here is what I am seeing and have a wireshark trace, I see the switch sending out LLDP packets and I see the phone respond back with all of its information but the switch doesn't do anything with the information, the switch never responds with a LLDP packet to tell it to use the voice vlan and tag the packets.  In fact if you do a show LLDP neighbors, you never see the phone when its booted up, like its not even there....

Has anyone seen this with Avaya phones and the SG series of switches?

[bhackbarth]

I had issues getting LLDP to work with that switch (the 28P) with Mitel 5330 and 5340 sets. The Cisco folks that monitor this board responded timely, but they set up LLDP in their lab with Cisco phones which of couse worked fine. The Mitel sets certainly didn't most of the time.

I gave up on LLDP and instead used a DHCP Option to tell the phones how to handle the VLAN.  In your case you would look at DHCP Options 176 and 242. http://www.ipofficeassistance.com/HOWTO_DHCP_IP_Phones.html is good guide. Note that you don't have to use Windows Server to do this. Any DHCP server that supports custom options will do, in case that's the route you want to try.   For what it's worth, LLDP works perfectly on the catalyst switches.

[dpc-itsupport]

Yeah I have opened a case, and they need to somehow fix the issue which I doubt they will but I will not let it drop.  I wish I had gone with a different platform now, the price was attractive and I was hoping that the software would be better than say a netgear platform. 

Yeah I know about the DHCP option stuff but its a shame since its the old way of dealing with the issue...I did some more testing tonight and evven tried the previous version of the software and it made no difference, it doesnt see any of the LLDP information from the avaya phone.  Yeah I would assume it work on the more expensive stuff since they have more customers that would require it to work properly, being this is for my church I couldn't swing the proce difference and if I could would have gone with HP...

[bhackbarth]

It is the old way, I certainly agree with that. LLDP's draft was finalized in 2005 so implementations of it should be bug-free by now. But sometimes for me, the old way is the most reliable way to just get things going and move on with life sometimes. In terms of feature set, I personally would take the SG3 series switch over a netgear switch. But, I admit I've never had this sort of issue with a Netgear switch. Netgear routers, that's a whole different story. I hope they get a solution for you, could you perhaps update this thread if and when you have a solution?

[dpc-itsupport]

Sure will do, I will probably end up doing the same thing but I will keep bugging them till hopefully getting someone to listen and get it fixed in a future release...I mean geez, you buy a POE switch to most likely do phones, it should just work...

I'll post back what I find out, I also have a sg500 and I want to test that one and see if it acts any better...I'll post back with those results also.

[Nagaraja Thanthry]

Hello Tom,

Thank you for reporting this issue. Kindly send all the forensics you have collected (switch configuration, wireshark captures) to the Cisco Engineer who is assisting you with this case. We will investigate this issue further to find the root cause and possibly a solution at the earliest.

Thanks,

Nagaraja

[dpc-itsupport]

Submitted the files yesterday, waiting for reply back.  But thanks to Braytons comments appears that he has seen the issue also....

[Dan Miley]

I looked for your case, but couldn't find it in our service request  database, can you post the case number, or PM it to me.

Is there a particular reason to turn off the auto voice vlan?  It seems that is what you are trying to do. 

I have gotten auto voice vlan to work with LLDP, CDP and using the OUI (voice vlan membership by Mac address). 

Here's a description from the admin guide of what auto voice vlan does:

Auto Voice VLAN mode depends on Auto Smartport to dynamically

add the ports to the voice VLAN. Auto Smartport, if enabled, adds a port to

the voice VLAN if it detects an attaching device to the port that advertises

itself as a phone or media end points through CDP and/or LLDP-MED.

I did find several cases for LLDP not working between  the avaya phones on 3750 switches, Most of them were closed referencing  avaya support.

So, here's my questions:

Can we look at the wireshark capture

are there any messages on the phones?  in the logs, or display?

What happens when you:

  factory default the switch,

  set the voice vlan to 10

  auto smart ports and auto voice vlan enable

  set the port type to 'ip phone and desktop'

  enable LLDP and setup lldp med network policy for voice

     Administration > Discovery - LLDP > LLDP MED Network Policy.

If you need assistance with this setup just call into the small business TAC at 866-606-1866. 

While we cannot guarantee interoperability with other vendors  equipment and software, there should be a way to get the auto voice vlan  to work.  if LLDP does not work with the Avaya phones, the Telephony  OUI should.

Below are some references and text taken from the admin guides.

reply with any questions, or just call in and we can give you a hand with this configuration.

Dan

---------

Here's some info about LLDP-med

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst3750/software/release/12.2_46_se/configuration/guide/swlldp.html#wp1079232

This doc

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/csbms/sf30x_sg30x/administration_guide/78-19308-01.pdf

page 198 describes auto voice vlan setup.

auto smart ports

When Auto Smartport is enabled on an interface and this command is run, the

switch automatically applies the corresponding Smartport type to the interface

based on the LLDP capabilities advertised by the attaching device(s).

Status commands from the CLI on the swtich

show LLDP neighbor

show LLDP neighbor (Details)

show lldp configuration

show lldp med configuration

show macro auto processing

Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) Commands

78-20269-01 Command Line Interface Reference Guide 663

45

44.18

lldp med network-policy voice auto

A network policy for voice LLDP packets can be created by using the lldp med

network-policy (global). The lldp med network-policy voice auto Global

Configuration mode is simpler in that it uses the configuration of the Voice

application to create the network policy instead of the user having to manually

configure it.

This command generates an LLDP MED network policy for voice, if the voice VLAN

operation mode is auto voice VLAN. The voice VLAN, 802.1p priority, and the

DSCP of the voice VLAN are used in the policy. Use the no form of this command

to disable this mode. The network policy is attached automatically to the voice

VLAN.

Syntax

lldp med network-policy voice auto

no lldp med network-policy voice auto

Parameters

N/A

Default Configuration

N/A

Command Mode

Global Configuration mode

User Guidelines

In Auto mode, the Voice VLAN feature determines on which interfaces to advertise

the network policy TLV with application type voice, and controls the parameters of

that TLV.

To enable the auto generation of a network policy based on the auto voice VLAN,

there must be no manual pre-configured network policies for the voice application

In Auto mode, you cannot manually define a network policy for the voice

application using the lldp med network-policy (global) command.

Example

switchxxxxxx(config)# lldp med network-policy voice auto

Auto Smartport works with CDP/LLDP to maintain the port memberships of the

voice VLAN when voice end-points are detected from the ports:

• When CDP and LLDP are enabled, the switch sends out CDP and LLDP

packets periodically to advertise the voice VLAN to the voice endpoints to

use.

• When a device attaching to a port advertises itself as a voice endpoint

through CDP and/or LLDP, the Auto Smartport automatically adds the port

to the voice VLAN by applying the corresponding Smartport macro to the

port (if there is no other devices from the port advertising a conflicting or

superior capability). If a device advertises itself as a phone, the default

Smartport macro is phone. If a device advertises itself as a phone and host

or phone and bridge, the default Smartport macro is phone+desktop.

[dpc-itsupport]

I have tried it both ways, the manual method and applying the policy to the ports and also via "auto voice vlan" method.  Neither worked, once the phone fully comes up if you try to see the phone via LLDP, e.g. sh lldp neighbors it shows noithing for the phone even though I see in the capture it sending LLDP frames.

The other problem is that even when the phone boots up, there is an issue it doesnt want to get an address even on the data vlan.  I have actually read that turing off LLDP solves that issue but I have not had the time to try that.

I have not tried the OUI via MAC, since then I have to manage that everytime a different phone is added.

My case # is SR 623773495

Willing to work with someone on this since I think this should just work since LLDP is the "official" standard and not CDP...

[Tom Watts]

Dear Tom and Brayton, if you have previous cases, please provide those numbers.

In addition, if there are not any current case numbers, I'd like to contact each of you via telephone. My working hours are 4pm-1am EST M-F.

I would like to set up a 1-shot full session to collect all information. Each call will probably take around 2 hours per instance.

I have recently had other reports of similar issues and I am working on moving that instance through the process.

If either of you have an open and current case, please allow that engineer to assist you. If needed, I will personally expedite this process for both of you.

Warm regards,

-Tom
Please rate helpful posts

[dpc-itsupport]

I provided my case number is SR 623773495, so far no one has contacted me today about the files that I attached which were the my running config and a wireshark capture. If you send me a PM I can send you those files if needed and I can get any information that is needed off of the switch, right now I am running the previous version of code to see if that made any difference and it did not. 

I'm actually a network engineer and do this for my day job but these were bought for my church which I support after hours, so I can provide any information that you might need since I would like to see this get resolved in a future release.

[Nagaraja Thanthry]

Hello Tom,

Can you please send the files to attach@cisco.com with the case number in the subject?

Thanks,

Nagaraja

[dpc-itsupport]

Done..

[dpc-itsupport]

Tested against a sg500-52P this morning and got the same results.  Could be that the avaya phones and the switches just dont play nice together, since as far as LLDP goes they appear to not see each other...I have a capture pretty much showing the same thing that I saw on the sg300.  Once the phone boots up I see some LLDP packets from both sides but if I look on the swtich at LLDP neigh, it does not see the phone at all.

[Nagaraja Thanthry]

Hello Tom,

We are investigating the issue in our lab and will get back to you with an update in next 2 business days.

Thanks a lot for your patience.

Regards,

Nagaraja