Help with command to locate devices by MAC addresses on switches with multiple VLANs

[pendal8286]

Hello all and thanks for your time and expertise.  Here's my scenario:  I often install APs in buildings with multiple switches.  The ports in these buildings are not marked and there can be as many as 10 switches in a building.  I've tried using the following command sequence to locate the devices down to the port on the specific switch but I'm usually pointed to an uplink port.

• On core switch enter SH ARP 
• On core switch enter SH ARP | include (IP Address)
• On core switch enter sh mac address-table address (mac address)
• On core switch enter sh cdp nei (port) detail
• Telnet to IP address of switch listed.
• Enter sh mac address-table address (mac address)

Is there a different command sequence that I could use that would help me locate these APs when multiple switches are involved.  It's not a big deal but sometimes I'm under the gun and fishing for the port can be a pain.  Anyway, I would greatly appreciate if someone could help me with this process.

[balaji.bandi]

Why not have NMS in place to monitor make you alert when the device port goes down.

you can have a script to get all MAC address ( with SNMP walk and store in the database to search)

I hope this makes sense?

[pendal8286]

Thanks for the reply.   We don't have NMS setup or snmp.  With that being the case am I out of luck in terms of using the CLI to track devices to their specific port in a multi switch environment?

[balaji.bandi]

Instead of doing Manual why not use automated script on Linux box to get all the MAC address so you when the device where connected.

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

you could also have the switches send you the entire mac address and/or arp tables periodically and have the output as an appended text file, so all you would have to do is search that file for the mac address in question. An EEM script could acomplsih this.

[Captain HoOmi]

These APs support SNMP? Then just enable SNMP and point to a SNMP server so you can get alerted if they go down. Also are they in a different VLAN? then simply by show vlan brief you can find the port and then by show mac address-table you can find the MAC address. Also do you use a WLC or are these stand alone APs? If you WLC you can get the MAC address from your WLC as well. 

Show interface status and show interface descrition can be useful too if you have description on the ports connected to these APs