Sh mac address-table | inc trouble (via remote/putty/vty/ssh)

[MtsMan0119]

I work for a world wide org. I am a lowly Tier 1 Network watch officer and this may seem like an uneducated question.

When I SSH into a switch (via putty) and a co-worker does the same (same switch, same commands) and run

sh mac address-table | inc xxxx    (xxxx=last 4 of mac)

He gets the interface back and I do not.

These are the facts I KNOW are correct and have been tested. The typing is the same, we are using the same switch, we are on the same path to the switch we are using. The switch is a Catalyst 4507 L3 Switch ver 3.0.6.00.e  ROM 15.1. He could sh mac and see it, I tried it and couldn't, he resolved the issue (the int was on the wrong vlan) once it was resolved and layer 3 was working, I could Finally see the int via the sh mac command i was using (I even arrowed up to make sure it wasn't typing).

This has happened to several other co-workers in pairs as we all work close together and ask each other to check it out.

What could the issue be and more importantly how can we get around/fix it?

Thank you for your time,

MtsMan

**if you need more info or testing, once it happens again, I can run any commands you need and post here. Once the layer 3 is solved, I can't recreate the problem (live network).

[Richard Burts]

MtsMan

This is a very strange issue. If you are both logged into the same switch and you both type the same command it is very strange that you get different output. And that you get the correct output when the vlan issue is corrected is even more strange. I can think of a couple of things that might explain it:

- is it possible that the switch implements VRFs and that his command or his environment accounted for the VRF and yours  did not?

- is it possible that your colleague was in privilege mode and you were initially in user mode and later got into privilege mode?

If it happens again I would ask that you get a screen shot of what you entered (including the prompt information where you entered your command) and a screen shot of what your colleague entered (including the prompt information for that one).

HTH

Rick

[MtsMan0119]

- is it possible that the switch implements VRFs and that his command or his environment accounted for the VRF and yours  did not?

This is the most interesting thought so far. Partially because its beyond my knowledge scope but I can find out more about it and get back to you (google warrior and access to tier 2/3 for company knowledge helps)

- is it possible that your colleague was in privilege mode and you were initially in user mode and later got into privilege mode?

When we log into the switch through putty we are automatically at "enable mode"  (# at the prompt)  both of us. We have some conf t rights (mainly port config issues) but we were both at the # prompt. That I am positive of.

I will show a screenshot if it happens again for further clarity. Thank you for working with me and my limited knowledge.

-Mtsman

[Karsten Iwen]

My first guess would be that there is a central command-authorization configured for all admins. Some of the admins have the needed rights assigned and some don't have the needed rights.

If you know an admin who has full rights, ask him if that is the case as he should be able to figure that out.

[MtsMan0119]

Thank you for the thought. I will ask our admins if we are in the same "shell" rights for the lack of a better term.

I can assure you though that this only happens every so often. I would say once in every 45 logins and usually we have the same rights as far as I am aware (at least the tier 1 guys) and if anything I have more rights than the others here (we used to set them up individually but as far as I know we all have the same rights now).

-MtsMan