Solved: ASK THE EXPERT- CATALYST 6500 SERIES SWITCHES - Page 3

ciscomoderator · ‎01-04-2002

Welcome to the Cisco Networking Professionals Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to discuss Catalyst 6500 Series switches with Cisco expert Jeff Raymond. Jeff is a Technical Marketing Engineer for the Catalyst 6500 Series of switches. His focus is on switching architectures and performance testing. Feel free to post any questions relating to Catalyst 6500 series switches.

Jeff may not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Our moderators will post many of the unanswered questions in other discussion forums shortly after the event. This event lasts through January 18. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

jeraymon · ‎01-10-2002

Hi.

The MSFC which is located on the Supervisor in Slot 1 is always Module 15 (session 15 to access). The MSFC which is located on the Supervisor in Slot 2 is always Module 16 (session 16 to access).

As far as determining which MSFC you are already sessioned to - you can use a "show redundancy" command. In general, you should configure different hostnames to denote the MSFC in slot 1 vs. the MSFC in slot 2.

To determine the MSFC hardware/software version, type the "show module" command.

For upgrading IOS on the Supervisor or MSFC, try taking a read through this documentation.

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/cat6000/sw_7_1/conf_gd/config.htm

TFTP server setup is generally specific to the specific TFTP server that you are running. To get started, you should install a decent TFTP Server (usually freeware downloadable from the Internet) on a station that has IP connectivity to the 6500. Place the image onto the TFTP server and then follow the instructions in the above documentation.

For general IOS on Cisco Routers, you might try reading through these documents:

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios121/121cgcr/fun_c/index.htm

Hope this helps.

Jeff Raymond

Catalyst 6500 Product Team

tsybille · ‎01-11-2002

Hi Jeff,

We have some Catalyst 2950 connected to our 6509s.

C2950 only support +/- 64 Vlans.

Is there a way to filter/choose wich VLAN the C2950 receive in the VTP advertisement ?

As soon as we have more then 65 vlan, the C2950 exit from the vtp domain...

Regard's

jeraymon · ‎01-11-2002

Hi.

Unfortunately, there is no option to filter which VLANs receive the VTP advertisement.

The situation here is more specific to the 2950 series switches than the 6500 series.

After the 64th VLAN is learned, the switch changes from VTP server or client mode to VTP transparent mode. If you have the 2950C-24 or the 2950T-24, you can download latest version of IOS code that enables up to 250 active VLANs (still with only 64 instances of STP). The version of code is 12.1.6.EA2a. Unfortunately, the 2950-12 and 2950-24 (with no uplinks) cannot run this version of code.

Hope this helps.

Jeff Raymond

Catalyst 6500 Product Team

m.amstelveen · ‎01-11-2002

What do you prefer CatOS or the IOS on the Cat6500 serie switches?

Will the IOS replace the CatOS?

What are the big difference between CatOS and IOS?

jeraymon · ‎01-11-2002

Hi,

It really depends on the deployment requirements and manageability concerns. The Cisco IOS, in general, is widely deployed on virtually all of Cisco's routers and on a good number of switches. Specifically on the Catalyst 6500 series, we see customers running IOS in their Core and Distribution deployments. Cat O/S tends to be deployed more often in wiring closets but we expect this to change with a number of Cisco IOS enabling features becoming available.

Some other things to think about would be the desire to manage 2 or more O/Ss in your network. If you already have an all-Cisco network, then running Cisco IOS will make life a bit easier, having to deal with just one CLI and syntax.

See below because there is more to deciding between the two...

Will the IOS replace the CatOS?

This is a bit open-ended as it is subject to market demand. But, the Cisco IOS is and will continue to be the flagship, receiving more enhancements, updates, and features. When you run Cisco IOS you get the benefit of leveraging multiple development teams and the new features they implement. Today, Cat OS has some features that the Cisco IOS does not and vice-versa. In the future we have plans for IOS to pick up nearly all of the Cat OS features and mechanisms and then some. At that point both Cisco and customers will have to decide whether it makes sense to have two O/Ss and CLIs when Cat O/S is a subset of IOS (from a feature perspective).

What are the big difference between CatOS and IOS?

As a baseline, we have 3 approaches on OS for the Catalyst 6500. Cat OS on the supervisor, Cat OS on the Supervisor and IOS on the MSFC (aka Hybrid), and Cisco IOS on Supervisor / MSFC (aka "Native Mode ").

WRT Native Mode, it exclusively supports distributed Forwarding enabling the Catalyst 6500 to hit 210Mpps. Otherwise, your best case will be 30Mpps. Native also exclusively supports several Optical Services Modules and the load balancing Content Switching Module. Cisco IOS also has some extra QoS and Multicast capabilities such as network based application recognition and distributed multicast switching. Remember that in order to run Cisco IOS a Multilayer Switch Feature Card (MSFC) is required. This is true for the Hybrid mode as well.

Currently, native mode, vs Cat OS (incl. Hybrid mode), does not support sub-second failover from one Sup to the 2nd Redundant Sup. If you are planning on redundant chassis, HSRP can be used as a network based alternative. Additional fail-over features will be introduced in Cisco IOS 12.2. S releases. If you are running VoIP, be sure to check supported features as well. We also have an ATM module that is only supported with Cat OS. We plan to close the gap in those areas as well during the 12.2S release train, which starts later this year.

Some customers run in "Hybrid" Mode to take advantage of both operating system benefits; but again, some features are only supported in native mode.

Hope this helps.

Jeff Raymond

Catalyst 6500 Product Team

vsahagian · ‎01-11-2002

Jeff;

Network is running PIM in sparse-mode. The VLAN interfaces on the distribution MSFC are passive back to the access layer. Will passive-interfaces prevent multicasts from reaching the access layer switches?

jeraymon · ‎01-14-2002

Hi,

The "passive-interface" router-mode configuration command only prevents routing protocols to establish adjancencies over those interfaces which you made passive. In other words, OSPF, EIGRP or ISIS will not attempt to form neighbors on passive interfaces (i.e. no hello packets will be sent out on those interfaces).

That is the only purpose of passive interfaces, it does not prevent user multicast traffic to reach its destination.

Hope this helps.

Jeff Raymond

Catalyst 6500 Product Team

bfortlage · ‎01-11-2002

Please provide me with a recommendation on buffer allocation for my 6509s. These switches

are in the core and distribution layers of my three-layer LAN. I'm told that 6509 does not properly

allocate buffer space automatically.

jeraymon · ‎01-11-2002

Hi,

The buffers on the 6500 ethernet interfaces are dedicated per-port - they are not shared among a group of ports. Packets are written to buffer dynamically in small segments which allows for an efficient use of overall buffer space. You cannot change the amount of buffer that is available to a port.

You can, however, change how that buffer is divided up per queue (with QoS enabled). The default queue sizes have proven quite sufficient so I would not recommend changing the queue sizes without a specific recommendation and testing.

Hope this helps.

Jeff Raymond

Catalyst 6500 Product Team

omarg1 · ‎01-14-2002

I have a problem with a cat 6509. Span doesn't work, and i need a sniffer in the two vlans i have. I also have a crossover cable between vlans...

when i set the port to span, it goes down and doesnt work....

please help...

thanks... omarg1

jeraymon · ‎01-14-2002

Hi,

From the detail above, I am not able to understand the problem you are having.

You might be better served by opening a TAC case to help resolve this problem. They would be able to more efficiently troubleshoot the problem than I am able to in this forum.

Jeff Raymond

Catalyst 6500 Product Team

yatao · ‎01-14-2002

Question about flash card access from MSFC2 module.

I was trying to boot up a new IOS image from sup flash card. But if failed with following message:

Loading slot0:c6msfc2-jk2sv-mz.121-7a.E1.bin ... [

%SYS-6-READ_BOOTFILE_FAIL: sup-slot0:c6msfc2-jk2sv-mz.121-7a.E1.bin File read failed -- Invalid argu

ment.

timed out]

Also failed with "copy sup-slot0: bootflash:" :

%Error reading sup-slot0:c6msfc2-jk2sv-mz.121-7a.E1.bin (Timed out)

But I am able to copy the startup-config in and out of the flash card using the same command. Could you tell me what is the problem? the file on flash card is okay for sure.

By the way, could you give some links for info on the eobc interface?

Thank you,

Yatao

jeraymon · ‎01-17-2002

Hi.

I've been trying to look further into this issue - but I haven't been able to find anything on this. Sorry.

This is not normal operation - maybe a hardware/software bug behind this. So, my recommendation would be to open a TAC case to see if they could diagnose the problem better than I could in this forum.

Thanks for your patience.

Jeff Raymond

Catalyst 6500 Product Team

lhmvic · ‎01-15-2002

Hi,

I have a Cat6509 with MSFC. Host A 10.31.1.2/24 is connected to VLAN1 and Host B 10.67.0.66/27 to VLAN2.

Interface VLAN1 has an ip 10.31.1.1/24 and interface VLAN2 is 10.67.0.93/27. Default route with next hop 10.31.1.1 is set in host A and 10.67.0.93 in host B.

However, host A can ping 10.67.0.93 but not host B, and host B can ping 10.31.1.1 but not host A. Do you have any idea why? Did I miss something?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Best Regards,

Victoria

Kris.keen · ‎01-15-2002

Default gateways??