Compatibility Issue w/ Soekris 5501 and Cisco 2640 Switch

[Chuck (Doc) Beaudette]

I have noted what appears to be a compatibility issue between the new Soekris and Cisco 2640 switch. I previously had a 4801 in my network connected to a Cisco 2640 for customers on a local Fiber network. The 4801 acted as the router between the fiber switch and our Cisco border router. Average 95th percentile traffic was about 15-20mb for customers on this network. Customers had good burst rates of 40mb and better.

When I replaced the 4801 with a new 5501, the throughput between the Cisco 2640 and the Soekris router dropped to next to nothing. We tried several different configurations (Auto negotiate, fixed 100mb Full-Duplex, etc.), nothing seemed to make any difference. Finally, we put a Netgear switch between the Cisco 2640 and the Soekris 5501 which cleared the problem. The 2640 is an older swtich, so the next option is try an upgrade to a 2660 switch then see if we can connect the Soekris directly.

Anyone know of similar issues with the 5501?

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[jmc-5]

--- Chuck (Doc) Beaudette [Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 01:32:42PM -0700]: ---

>
> I have noted what appears to be a compatibility issue between the new
> Soekris and Cisco 2640 switch. I previously had a 4801 in my network
> connected to a Cisco 2640 for customers on a local Fiber network. The 4801
> acted as the router between the fiber switch and our Cisco border router.
> Average 95th percentile traffic was about 15-20mb for customers on this
> network. Customers had good burst rates of 40mb and better.
>
> When I replaced the 4801 with a new 5501, the throughput between the Cisco
> 2640 and the Soekris router dropped to next to nothing. We tried several
> different configurations (Auto negotiate, fixed 100mb Full-Duplex, etc.),
> nothing seemed to make any difference. Finally, we put a Netgear switch
> between the Cisco 2640 and the Soekris 5501 which cleared the problem. The
> 2640 is an older swtich, so the next option is try an upgrade to a 2660
> switch then see if we can connect the Soekris directly.
>
> Anyone know of similar issues with the 5501?

i don't know of anything inherent in the ethernet port of the 5501, but
there was a time when the prevailing wisdom with older Cisco gear was
NOT to autonegotiate---even though the manuals might have stated
otherwise.

this beared out to be true with some older (some might say ``legacy'')
Sun gear, but x86 mobos with flavor-of-the-month chipsets might have
worked fine. IME, anyway.

what OS are you running on the 5501? dumb question, but did you also set
the 5501 to 100 FDX as well as the switch?

this really smells of an autonegotiate problem or duplex mismatch
problem. was/does the collision counter racking up numbers?
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[Tuc at T-B-O-H.NET]

>
> When I replaced the 4801 with a new 5501, the throughput between the Cisco
> 2640 and the Soekris router dropped to next to nothing. We tried several
> different configurations (Auto negotiate, fixed 100mb Full-Duplex, etc.),
> nothing seemed to make any difference. Finally, we put a Netgear switch
> between the Cisco 2640 and the Soekris 5501 which cleared the problem. The
> 2640 is an older swtich, so the next option is try an upgrade to a 2660
> switch then see if we can connect the Soekris directly.
>
> Anyone know of similar issues with the 5501?
>

        Actually, I haven't used a 5501 yet, but I've had problems with
the 4801 and a Cisco 2924 :

c2924-1 1265: May 23 23:01:41 EDT: %LINK-4-ERROR: FastEthernet0/16 is experiencing errors

        I have about 42 over a 3 week period. Its done this for 3 different
4801's I've had on the switch, and never for any other piece of equipment in
12 years of running ISPs using them. I've just put it down to "Feeces Occur".

        Would like to hear more about your experiences as you find out about it.

                        Thanks, Tuc
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[Chris Babcock-3]

jmc wrote:

> --- Chuck (Doc) Beaudette [Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 01:32:42PM -0700]: ---
>> I have noted what appears to be a compatibility issue between the new
>> Soekris and Cisco 2640 switch. I previously had a 4801 in my network
>> connected to a Cisco 2640 for customers on a local Fiber network. The 4801
>> acted as the router between the fiber switch and our Cisco border router.
>> Average 95th percentile traffic was about 15-20mb for customers on this
>> network. Customers had good burst rates of 40mb and better.
>>
>> When I replaced the 4801 with a new 5501, the throughput between the Cisco
>> 2640 and the Soekris router dropped to next to nothing. We tried several
>> different configurations (Auto negotiate, fixed 100mb Full-Duplex, etc.),
>> nothing seemed to make any difference. Finally, we put a Netgear switch
>> between the Cisco 2640 and the Soekris 5501 which cleared the problem. The
>> 2640 is an older swtich, so the next option is try an upgrade to a 2660
>> switch then see if we can connect the Soekris directly.
>>
>> Anyone know of similar issues with the 5501?
>
> i don't know of anything inherent in the ethernet port of the 5501, but
> there was a time when the prevailing wisdom with older Cisco gear was
> NOT to autonegotiate---even though the manuals might have stated
> otherwise.
>
> this beared out to be true with some older (some might say ``legacy'')
> Sun gear, but x86 mobos with flavor-of-the-month chipsets might have
> worked fine. IME, anyway.
>
> what OS are you running on the 5501? dumb question, but did you also set
> the 5501 to 100 FDX as well as the switch?
>
> this really smells of an autonegotiate problem or duplex mismatch
> problem. was/does the collision counter racking up numbers?

I have also seen similar behavior with devices that do auto MDI<->MDIX
setting with some devices.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there is a
way to control the MDI/MDIX function in software.  Anybody, here know if
there is a way to control that in software?
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[The Fungi]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 02:44:34PM -0700, Chris Babcock wrote:
> I have also seen similar behavior with devices that do auto MDI<->MDIX
> setting with some devices.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there is a
> way to control the MDI/MDIX function in software.  Anybody, here know if
> there is a way to control that in software?

I've seen a lot of our customers taken by surprise on Cisco devices
when setting "noauto" to attempt manual speed/duplex setting, not
realizing they've also just turned off auto-cross functionality and
need to switch their straight-through cable with a crossover (or
vice versa).
--
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SMTP(fungi@...); IRC(fungi@...#ccl); ICQ(114362511);
AIM(dreadazathoth); YAHOO(crawlingchaoslabs); FINGER(fungi@...);
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[Phil Brutsche-3]

Yes, but it's specific to managed switches, and even then only if the
switch supports MDIX.

No managed switch? Sorry, not much you can do about it.

Chris Babcock wrote:
> I have also seen similar behavior with devices that do auto MDI<->MDIX
> setting with some devices.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there is a
> way to control the MDI/MDIX function in software.  Anybody, here know if
> there is a way to control that in software?

--

Phil Brutsche
phil@...
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[Chuck (Doc) Beaudette]

I should correct my earlier mail, the switch was a 2940 .... I wrote 2640.

It was not auto-neg or MDI/MDIX, because we tried every possible
combination. Replaced the 2940 this morning with a 2960 and problem solved.



-----Original Message-----
From: Tuc at T-B-O-H.NET [mailto:ml@...]
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 2:40 PM
To: "Chuck (Doc) Beaudette"
Cc: soekris-tech@...
Subject: Re: [Soekris] Compatibility Issue w/ Soekris 5501 and Cisco 2640
Switch

>
> When I replaced the 4801 with a new 5501, the throughput between the
> Cisco 2640 and the Soekris router dropped to next to nothing. We tried
> several different configurations (Auto negotiate, fixed 100mb
> Full-Duplex, etc.), nothing seemed to make any difference. Finally, we
> put a Netgear switch between the Cisco 2640 and the Soekris 5501 which
> cleared the problem. The 2640 is an older swtich, so the next option
> is try an upgrade to a 2660 switch then see if we can connect the Soekris
directly.
>
> Anyone know of similar issues with the 5501?
>
        Actually, I haven't used a 5501 yet, but I've had problems with the
4801 and a Cisco 2924 :

c2924-1 1265: May 23 23:01:41 EDT: %LINK-4-ERROR: FastEthernet0/16 is
experiencing errors

        I have about 42 over a 3 week period. Its done this for 3 different
4801's I've had on the switch, and never for any other piece of equipment in
12 years of running ISPs using them. I've just put it down to "Feeces
Occur".

        Would like to hear more about your experiences as you find out about
it.

                        Thanks, Tuc

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[Chris Babcock-3]

Phil Brutsche wrote:
> Yes, but it's specific to managed switches, and even then only if the
> switch supports MDIX.
>
> No managed switch? Sorry, not much you can do about it.
>
I wasn't referring to the switch.  I was referring to the Soekris box.
The ethernet ports on the net5501 are Auto MDI/MDIX ports.

I was suggesting that there may be an issue with the auto MDI/MDIX
function on the Soekris when connecting to that specific model of switch.

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[Stuart Henderson]

On 2008-06-11, Chuck (Doc) Beaudette <doc@...> wrote:
> When I replaced the 4801 with a new 5501, the throughput between the Cisco
> 2640 and the Soekris router dropped to next to nothing. We tried several
> different configurations (Auto negotiate, fixed 100mb Full-Duplex, etc.),
> nothing seemed to make any difference. Finally, we put a Netgear switch
> between the Cisco 2640 and the Soekris 5501 which cleared the problem. The
> 2640 is an older swtich, so the next option is try an upgrade to a 2660
> switch then see if we can connect the Soekris directly.

Which OS/version? There is a bug in auto negotiation order in some
PHY drivers based on FreeBSD (now fixed there) that affects cisco
3550 and maybe it also affects others.. (actually the problem only
happens with a combination of a bug in the PHY driver and a cisco
bug).  http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=92599


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[Joel Jaeggli-3]

Chris Babcock wrote:

> I have also seen similar behavior with devices that do auto MDI<->MDIX
> setting with some devices.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there is a
> way to control the MDI/MDIX function in software.  Anybody, here know if
> there is a way to control that in software?

auto mdi-x is a spec requirement for 1000base-tx gigabit... 100 base-t
ethernet rollover cables only do two of the 4 pairs...

older hp switches would drop polarity detetection when autoneg was
turned off...

In general you should turn autoneg on... these days duxplex mismatch is
more likely than not due to one device being hard configured rather than
because negotiation failed.

Even if you are forcing a particular configuration, the device should
advertise that one configuration via autonegotiation, that will save
someone a lot of headaches when they have to debug it later, and it's
likely to work with devices set for autonegotiation.

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[Chris Babcock-3]

Joel Jaeggli wrote:

> Chris Babcock wrote:
>
>> I have also seen similar behavior with devices that do auto MDI<->MDIX
>> setting with some devices.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there is a
>> way to control the MDI/MDIX function in software.  Anybody, here know
>> if there is a way to control that in software?
>
> auto mdi-x is a spec requirement for 1000base-tx gigabit... 100 base-t
> ethernet rollover cables only do two of the 4 pairs...
>

I have some Cisco Catalyst 2950T switches here that speak to the fact
that Cisco doesn't necessarily have even "mandatory" parts of the
standard implemented.
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