NetworkNick.net » ProCurve http://networknick.net/blog Events, trends, hacks, tools, and the occasional rant from a networking consultant. Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:50:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 en hourly 1 New products=New MIB’s. Get ‘em here! http://networknick.net/blog/?p=55 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=55#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 05:25:22 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/?p=55 For your downloading pleasure.

]]> http://networknick.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=55 0 While we’re discussing K.13 code http://networknick.net/blog/?p=53 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=53#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:24:54 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/?p=53 There is another often requested feature now in the code base. The “pipe”.

Strangely it isn’t documented, but you have the standard begin/include/exclude set of options.

Usage:

show run | begin vlan

]]> http://networknick.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=53 0 The self configuring switch… http://networknick.net/blog/?p=46 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=46#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:17:05 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/?p=46 So here’s one for you…as of the K.13.X release of code, you now can use DHCP options 66 and 67 to specify a TFTP server and filename for configuration at boot. The switch listens by default for these options. Combine that with the “auto-tftp” command, and voila!…You have a switch that is configured and standardized with your version of software.

Not bad at all..

]]> http://networknick.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=46 0 The 4 byte mystery… http://networknick.net/blog/?p=44 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=44#comments Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:33:01 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/2008/03/28/the-4-byte-mystery/ So I was at a client site this week troubleshooting a strange traffic mirroring issue. It went something like this:
I thought the ProCurve 3500 mirror port was dropping specific inbound oversized SIP packets on the outbound mirror port. The actual traffic went through, but the mirror port only saw the continuation frame, not the initial 1500 bytes frame. This was a standard 1 port>1port mirror configuration, bi-directional, no filtering. So we dug in to find out why the mirror port wasn’t forwarding that first frame. For a while we were stumped, but then I did a netstat -e on the sniffer (Windows based) and whatdya know, it’s got 63,000 unknown frames…! So here is what happend:

When you mirror an interface on the ProCurve switch, even locally, any traffic sent outbound on the monitored port has a VLAN tag appended for the VLAN it is part of, even when you are monitoring an untagged port. When you are sniffing traffic with a non 802.1q compliant NIC, and the packet size exceeds 1514, (you get fragmentation obviously). HOWEVER, because the total packet size is 1514+4 bytes for the VLAN tag outbound, the sniffer NIC drops it completely as it is oversized. This was causing the sniffer to miss the first packet (total size~1800 bytes) and just see the second fragment(~300 bytes). Once we connected a 802.1q compliant NIC to the system, we saw all packets.Moral of the story: Use a .1q compliant NIC if you what to see all bidirectional traffic on a ProCurve mirror port. If you don’t have a .1q compliant NIC, make sure to enable the .1p setting in the driver, this will allow it to recieve the oversized packet (although it won’t interperet the VLAN tag).


I speaking with one of the developers, the intent of appending the tag was to allow an IDS system to delineate traffic from multiple networks on a single upling/mirror session, but this obviously breaks some expected behaviors elsewhere. ProCurve is going to be releasing an enhancement that allows you to disable the VLAN tag on the mirror session, but until them, make sure your NIC can take the tag!

]]> http://networknick.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=44 0 Ifindex what? http://networknick.net/blog/?p=43 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=43#comments Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:33:40 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/2008/01/31/ifindex-what/ When working with ProCurve products and SNMP, we do a lot with ifIndex, standardized in the RFC 2863 IF-MIB. Of course, the physical/logical correlation of the ProCurve interfaces with the MIB ifindex entries don’t line up, ie, port A1=ifindex 1, but port B1=ifindex 25. Also, VLAN’s and loopbacks get their own entries, and those aren’t static. The best way to find out what the ifindex entry to port/VLAN map is to do a “walkmib ifdescr” from an enable prompt. I will show you every interface/VLAN/lo interface and it’s “name” in ProCurveese.

]]> http://networknick.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=43 0 Gotcha! Reserved Multicast is more than 224.0.0.X http://networknick.net/blog/?p=42 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=42#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:54:34 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/2007/10/11/gotcha-reserved-multicast-is-more-than-22400x/ Pretty much everyone knows that reserved multicast addresses are always flooded on ethernet networks. IGMP does not program filters for packets addressed to the “Reserved Multicast Address” range. There are Reserved Addresses at Layer 3 (i.e., 224.0.0.1 – 224.0.0.255) that at layer two are indistinguishable from a broader range of MAC Addresses (because the Multicast Mac Address always begins with 01005E-XXXXXX, which covers the leading byte plus one more bit of the IP Address). No filters are programmed for these, nor should they be as this will break other multicast protocols.

So the story here is, L3 reserved addresses are the 224.0.0.X, but L2 really has more reservations because of the way the IP maps to the MAC.

That being said, the following addresses are always flooded (i.e., never filtered):

224.0.0.XX 224.128.0.XX
225.0.0.XX 225.128.0.XX
226.0.0.XX 226.128.0.XX
227.0.0.XX 227.128.0.XX
228.0.0.XX 228.128.0.XX
229.0.0.XX 229.128.0.XX
230.0.0.XX 230.128.0.XX
231.0.0.XX 231.128.0.XX
232.0.0.XX 232.128.0.XX
233.0.0.XX 233.128.0.XX
234.0.0.XX 234.128.0.XX
235.0.0.XX 235.128.0.XX
236.0.0.XX 236.128.0.XX
237.0.0.XX 237.128.0.XX
238.0.0.XX 238.128.0.XX
239.0.0.XX 239.128.0.XX

Good to keep in mind when choosing that arbitrary address for your multicast application. Make sure that it doesn’t end up in the reserved L2 space!

]]> http://networknick.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=42 0 Cisco Interop Documentation http://networknick.net/blog/?p=41 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=41#comments Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:20:30 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/2007/10/01/cisco-interop-documentation/ I’ve had a lot of partners and customers lately asking me for a Cisco interop document from ProCurve. These aren’t officially sanctioned, but should do the trick.

Here is the link to a zip file containing the following:

Cisco interop powerpoint: This was put together by one of the European technical consultants, and discusses things like migration strategies and command comparisons.

Cisco interop PDF: The semi formal guide for L2-L3 interop with Cisco devices and proprietary protocols.

Spanning tree notes: MSTP and RSTP/PVST interop notes. Maximize your STP!

]]> http://networknick.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=41 1 Updated MIB’s – September 2007 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=40 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=40#comments Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:13:14 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/2007/09/24/updated-mibs-september-2007/ ProCurve has released a plethora of new product and features…here are the updated MIB’s for all you SNMP guru’s.

]]> http://networknick.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=40 0 HPTF 2007 Best of the best – Laura Chapell http://networknick.net/blog/?p=39 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=39#comments Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:43:52 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/2007/08/21/hptf-2007-best-of-the-best-laura-chapell/ I attended the HPTF back in June, and didn’t get a chance to write about my favorite part of the week. Packet/protocol analysis is the last word for troubleshooting problems in our world. I use Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) every week. There is so much to know about the software, it’s use, and analysis features. No one I’ve met knows more about protocol analysis than Laura Chappell. She was the highlight of the HPTF, I attended 3 of her 2 hour sessions. If you’ve attended any of Laura’s protocol analysis training or seminars, I probably don’t need to tell you how awesome she is. If you don’t know who she is, hop over to :

]]> http://networknick.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=39 0 Cool Tool – fetchconfig http://networknick.net/blog/?p=38 http://networknick.net/blog/?p=38#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 03:59:41 +0000 nick http://networknick.net/blog/2007/08/12/cool-tool-fetchconfig/ Check this out. It’s a Perl script (hence cross platform) that not just pulls configs, but also archives and has the option to only pull them if they’ve changed. Check out the options:

repository The base directory for saving the configuration files.
keep The maximum number of config files to retain for the device. When this limit is reached, the older files are discarded.
changes_only If specified as changes_only=1, only new configurations are saved. Otherwise, confi


Direct download.

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