newbie question about port status

[sweetpain]

Hello,

I am fairly new to the cisco world but have configured a few routers. I have about 20 catalyst switches (about 7 years old) in a closet at a remote site. Random users have no network conectivity so I looked at my switches and to my suprise some of the switches had a orange light on the port and did not work. Some of the other ports had a green light but still would not allow the desktops to be connected. I rebooted my switches and this seem to help temporaraly along with moving some desktops to un used ports that did work. Ten of the 20 switches have what I call one or more bad ports. About a week later 10 more people had to be moved to new open ports. Also one or two of the uplink ports show an orange color as well....

How do I go about verifying the status of these "dead" ports? Is there a way to re-set the port? I tried opening the web console but took forever to load. I ran a show statement but nothing looked out of the ordinary (probably because I have nothing plugged into the bad ports?). What can I run to show management about these switches?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


Thank You!!!

 

[unclerico]

when you say they had an amber light, were all of the led's amber at the same time or just some of the ports?? do you have any loops in your design??

I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)

 

[sweetpain]

only some of the ports are amber, few actually, not that is matters because some of the other ports that do not work are NOT amber. No loops that I am aware of. How can I tell?

Thank you for the reply but what is my first step in diag??

 

[burtsbees]

Are they amber WITHOUT anything plugged into them? C2924XL's were somewhat known for that...but those are older than 7 years...they went EoL 7 years ago...lol

Burt

 

[vipergg]

I would say you have some ports that spanning tree has put into a blocked state . What kind of switches are they ? Look at the status , "show interface status" . Then you look for blocked ports with "show spanning tree blocked ports and see if someone out there has put something out there like a hub and looped ports together. The ports could also be ina err-disable state in which case do a "shut" then a " no shut" on the port.

 

[sweetpain]

only a few ports ARE amber with out anything plugged into them.

These are CISCO Catalyst 3500 XL series switches.

A couple of the switches have an amber light on the uplink gigabyte port but still works....??

I ran a show spanning tree command on the last switch in my closet, here are the results:



VLAN1
Spanning tree enabled protocol IEEE
ROOT ID Priority 32768
Address 0004.270d.e380
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 32768
Address 0004.c17a.9cc0
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec


Port Designated
Name Port ID Prio Cost Sts Cost Bridge ID Port ID
------- ------- ---- ---- --- ---- -------------- -------
Fa0/1 128.13 128 19 FWD 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.13
Fa0/2 128.14 128 19 FWD 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.14
Fa0/3 128.15 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.15
Fa0/4 128.16 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.16
Fa0/5 128.17 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.17
Fa0/6 128.18 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.18
Fa0/7 128.19 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.19
Fa0/8 128.20 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.20
Fa0/9 128.22 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.22
Fa0/10 128.23 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.23


Port Designated
Name Port ID Prio Cost Sts Cost Bridge ID Port ID
------- ------- ---- ---- --- ---- -------------- -------
Fa0/11 128.24 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.24
Fa0/12 128.25 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.25
Fa0/13 128.26 128 19 FWD 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.26
Fa0/14 128.27 128 100 FWD 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.27
Fa0/15 128.28 128 19 FWD 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.28
Fa0/16 128.29 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.29
Fa0/17 128.31 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.31
Fa0/18 128.32 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.32
Fa0/19 128.33 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.33
Fa0/20 128.34 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.34
Fa0/21 128.35 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.35


Port Designated
Name Port ID Prio Cost Sts Cost Bridge ID Port ID
------- ------- ---- ---- --- ---- -------------- -------
Fa0/22 128.36 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.36
Fa0/23 128.37 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.37
Fa0/24 128.38 128 19 BLK 12 0004.c17a.9cc0 128.38
Gi0/1 128.40 128 4 FWD 8 0004.9acc.5d80 128.48
Gi0/2 128.48 128 4 BLK 8 0004.9acc.5d80 128.48

Switch-12B>

 

[burtsbees]

Amber with nothing plugged in=bad port. Amber but working I think means that it is at 10MBps...

try

switch#test ?

Burt

 

[sweetpain]

hi

what is the full command for "switch#test ?" ? What does it do? Do I do this command in EN mode?

Thank You!

 

[burtsbees]

switch>en
switch#test ?

That will tell you what you can test. For example, here is the output from my router...

Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Password:
___ _ ____ _ ___
/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \ Hey Rocky!
| _|@ @ __ | Watch me pull a hacker's IP
\________/ | | \________/ address out of my log files!
__/ _/
/) (o _/
\____/
Edge>en
Password:
Edge#test ?
Virtual-Template Virtual Template interface
aaa AAA Authentication, Authorization and Accounting
appletalk APPLETALK diagnostic code
cac test the l2 cac functionality
call Call test commands
cpurmi CPU RMI test commands
crypto Test crypto functions
dslsar test dslsar
dsp Test DSP functions
eigrp IPX EIGRP test commands
enum test enum
glbp Gateway Load Balancing Protocol test commands
gssapi GSSAPI test code
hpi host port interface
ifs IFS TEST code
interfaces Network interfaces
iphc IPHC testing
ipmobile IP Mobility Test commands
lmr Diagnose lmr ports with simulating dsp event
oer Test Optimized Exit Routing
opssl OPSSL Test
pasvc PPP over ATM SVC Test Driver
pppatm PPP over ATM SSS Test
pppoe PPPoE test commands
process Create/kill test processes
save save load monitor snapshot
scp SCP test commands
sctp SCTP test commands
sgbp SGBP test commands
source-group Test Source IP Group
spanning-tree Spanning Tree Subsystem
srtp Test SRTP Libray functionality
ssl SSL Test
sw-vlan Test VLAN Manager feature
translate Protocol translation test function
translation-rule Test translation rule table
tunnel Test tunnel
voice Voice related test commands
voip-aaa voip-aaa test menu utility
watch Set and clear PPC860 watch registers

Edge#test int
No IP address for ATM0/0.
Skipping...
Test FastEthernet0/0 [y/n] ? y
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Passed
No IP address for NVI0.
Skipping...
No IP address for Virtual-Access1.
Skipping...
Test Dialer0 [y/n] ? y
... Failed - timeout problem
No IP address for VoIP-Null0.
Skipping...
6 interfaces: 1 passed, 1 failed, 0 skipped, 4 untestable

You may not be able to test the interfaces in that switch---I can't in my 2924XL with the IOS I have on it...

Burt

 

[vipergg]

As you can see by your display for some reason spanninng tree has put many of the ports into a blocked state , in which cASE they will not pass any traffic. Have never seen that many ports blocked by spanning tree so it could be a switch issue. I can't even speculate on why you would get that many ports blocked at once . Is everything in vlan 1 or are there other vlans also . Are all those ports just user ports or are they hooked to some other device?