Detecting Fibre Converters

[bdyzel123]

Hi,

Is it possible to detect if trunks between a core and edge switch has fibre converters in between?

Regards,

Brandon

[Reza Sharifi]

Brandon,

Can you provide a little more description as to what you are trying to do? By fiber converter, you mean media converter?

Regards

[bdyzel123]

Hi Reza,

If the Core switch uses a Gigabit Ethernet port to connect to the fibre/media converter with a similar setup at the edge, is there a way to see if there are fibre/media converters being used on the Gigabit Ethernet line?

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi Brandon,

If I understand you correctly, you are trying to figure out if the interface is fibe or copper right?

If yes, on the switch where the connection comes in find the blade and port number and do this:

Example

show interfaces gi 1/1 capabilities
here the blade is 1 and the port is also 1 

What type of switches are you using?

HTH

[bdyzel123]

Hi Reza,

Using 3560's as core, and 2960's as the edges.

I'm not trying to figure out if the interface is using copper or fibre, as the interface runs a copper cable to a fibre converter.

There is a fibre link between the two fibre converters, but the challenge is to see if there is a fibre converter connected to the CAT6 cable, that in turn connects to the switches.

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi Brandon,

Sorry, now I understand you.  No, there is no way to tell from either switches if they are connected to a media converter.  As far as the switches know, they are connected using copper, which are the interfaces on the switches.

HTH

[hobbe]

Hi

I do not know of a way to check if there is a change of media in itself.

however there are some ways you can sort of figure out if there is something there.

First of all

are the endpoints more than 100 meters away from eachother. then yes there is a fiberconverter somewhere down the line.

if the endpoints are not then you can check the length of the cable some switches can do this via

"test cable-diagnostics tdr" if the cable is shorter than the distance between the units then there is something there.

Thats the best I can think of right now.

Good luck

HTH