2948G-L3 switches not saving config or PINGing

[asteffens1]

We have several older Cisco Catalyst 2948G-L3 older switches that we dug out of mothballs to deploy (i.e. no SmartNet contract on them).  No one here is a true network admin (smaller company) and we recently lost our network consultant.  Our standard Cisco router configuration notes has us performing a write mem and followed by a copy running-config startup-config to save the switch configuration.  When we power down this particular switch after configuring it, it completely loses it's configuration and comes up with the "Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no] when powering it back up.  The User's Guide for that switch tells us to use the copy running-config startup-config to save the switch config ... but that doesn't appear to work on either of theese 3 switches we have.  Can anyone tell us what we are missing?

Also we installed a WS-G5483 1000BaseT GBIC (RJ45) in GigabitEthernet50 to connect this switch up to our Core Switch (Cisco 4503).  That GE50 port was configured no shutdown and with the IP address, SM and gateway address.  Gateway address = IP address of the connected Core Switch port.  I can PING from the 2948G-L3 switch to the gateway address succesfully, but can not reached the switch from our network (can't PING it).  Is there something we are missing.  All our other Cisco switches use VLAN 1 for their network interface and they all PING in both directions.  What is unique about this particular switch?  Since it's a Layer 3 switch, do I need to supply a route to get to it from the LAN?  Thanks for any help anyone can give us.       

[glen.grant · Accepted solution]

  I would say the config register in the switch is incorrect ,  not knowing that particular switch they are normally set a 0x2101 or 0x2102 for the config register. 

[asteffens1]

We'll need to read up on the config register.  No one here knows anything about the switch internals.  How would I know what it is and should be set to?  Appreciate your help.

[asteffens1]

Glen - you tagged it.  After reading up on the web on config registers and reconfiguring the switch for the 10th time using the initial config dialog, we were able to use the show version command and found the switch config-register to be set to 0x2142.  I did a conf t, followed by a config-register 0x2102, write mem and a copy running-config startup-config and the switch keeps it's config now through the power sequence.  Thanks a bunch!  Now I just need to figure out the PING issue and we are good to go.

[asteffens1]

One more tidbit of info on the PING issue.  It appears that from the Core Switch we can PING the 2948G-L3 switch.  But for some reason we can't PING the 2948G-L3 switch from the network.  When we plug a laptop into a 2948G-L3 switch FastEthernet port, the port plugged into does not light up on the front of the switch, the laptop Windows environment reports that the network cable is not plugged in, and it picks up no DHCP supplied IP address through the network.  For all intents and purposes the switch thinks it is not on the network.  Can anyone help us with this?

[glen.grant]

  Try hardcoding an address and a default gateway  on the pc nic.  If the register was at 0x2142 then someone had to do a password recovery procedure at some point and left it like that instead of changing it back .   Take a look at this doc and see if it helps you.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps672/products_tech_note09186a0080093f8f.shtml#fig1

[asteffens1]

That's not it.  The Core switch port is set up as VLAN37 and the 2948G-L3 switch I'd like to be a pass-thru for our 10.0.37.x DHCP.  Works on all our other VLANed switches.  The PC once plugged into the 2948G-L3 switch should get a 10.0.37.x address, but the switch isn't currently reachable (PINGable) from our DNS server.  Can PING it from the Core switch but nothing else sees it.  I think we need to configure the 2948G-L3 for VLAN1 and give that VLAN the full range of all 48 ports, but there is no clear documentation in the Users Guide that shows us how to do that.  I'll keep reading. Thanks for all your help up to this point.

[Leo Laohoo]

Hi Alan,

Is the the CatOS 2948?  If this is so, then you don't need to "save" the config.  The 2948 is the same as the SupII of the 4000 chassis so it's a "set" commands.  When ever you configure and start with the "set" by the time you hit the CR then the system will automatically save your config.

[asteffens1]

Leolaohoo - Glen (above) already helped us solve the config save problem.  The config-register was set to 0x2142 which wasn't allowing the copy running-config startup-config command to work.  Thanks for your response.