problem with shifting client side ethernets on a Nortel Passport 8600

Sounds to me you have a speed and duplex problem.

What speed and duplex is your Linux Server running at and what speed and duplex is your port configured at.

ie.

Linux Server speed 1000 and duplex full, Switch port speed 100 duplex full, link stays down. Maybe you need to set both ends to auto neg.

There is a free utility called Device Manager, a Java GUI to manage the Passport 8600. Its about 130MB to download at Nortel.com, dead easy to use.

Hi All,

Apologies if I am being a bit vague in the following description of my problem. I tried google and google groups but was unable to find anything remotely relevant. I am a UNIX guy and don't have much idea about managed switching and netowrking internals except the basics.

I am a UNIX guy and I needed to deploy a server at a clients place. The server to be deployed was earlier running on a Linux Server connected to a VLAN port configured on a Nortel Passport 8600 Switch over ethernet. The entire networking was done a couple of years ago and the internal network guys don't have any idea.

The system is supposed to be shifted to a brand new hardware. I just needed to remove the ethernet cable from the existing server and plugged in to the new server running Linux again.

The "link LED" failed to come up and the interface was shown as "down". What I had anticipated was that the switch would update its ARP cache after a few minutes, but nothing of that sort happenned. I tried rebooting the switch but even it failed to work. I tried configuring other machines running Windows XP and FreeBSD 6.0, but the end result was the same.

So, I think these might be the reasons:

1. Either, the port at the Nortel switch has been configured with the ARP of the Linux Server as the destination, or
2. The Nortel Switch is unable to reload its ARP cache.

I am in a fix, and I am trying to find a solution to make the above work without having to modify any configurations on the Nortel Switch.

Looking forward to all possible help,

Thanks and Regards, Animesh NeoLinux Solutions

It's a link problem not ARP. How can Passport 8600 get ARP record if a link never goes up? Check both speed and duplex mode of Passport 8600 and the NIC of your server. If you don;t want to change any setting of Passport 8600, just change the speed and duplex mode of the NIC to match Passport 8600.

Good Luck

snipped-for-privacy@neol> Hi All,

Try checking the properties of the port, it could be disabled or configured to be a on a different VLAN. Use a Device Manager program to do this.

D> It's a link problem not ARP. How can Passport 8600 get ARP record if a

Check the log file on the 8600 "show log file tail". Page to the date/time of when you attempted to connect the cable. See if the port indicated "excessive link oscillations". Disable/enable the port to activate the port again.

Thanks everybody for the responses, The problem was with the port speeds. The 8600 had a gigabit port and the port at the Linux server was a 10/100 Mbps. The problem was resolved by using a gigabit ethernet at the Linux Server.

Thanks aga> Try checking the properties of the port, it could be disabled or