Brocade Switch Login Problem

Check the network port for errors - could be as simple as a bad cable.  If you can connect to it with an ethernet crossover cable without any issues, you may need to check elsewhere...

Check your ARP/MAC tables on the switch that it is connected to and see if something else "thinks" it has that IP address.

Double check the speed/duplex on the fiber switch and attached network port as well.

Dan

Hey Dan,

thanks for getting back, but I checked the network port and physical connection. Every thing was good.

And regarding checking ARP/MAC table in switch, I really dont know how to check that, but if you can let me know that would be a great help for me.

And the good news is that the switch came back, now I can ping it and connect to the IP management port. But still have no idea what happended

Thank You

Rama

Looks like, that there was some loose cable connection, with what you have described. Did you tried taking the cable out by unplugging it from the management port and plugging it elsewhere to check the cable? If so, you reseated the cable in the management port in doing so, (when you plugged the cable back to the switch management port) this might have seated the cable properly in the port, thus getting the connection up. To confirm this, try to look for the link LED on the ethernet port on your management server, whenever you are not able to ping the switch, if it is not on it will indicate that the physical link is not up, due to some connection issue. Once the physical connection is not at fault, then you can try looking for the logical layers for the issue.

Hope this helps / answers your query.

Hey Abhishek,

Thanks for the info. I tried that. Check out all the physical connections and tryied unplugging and reconnecting the IP connectivity cables. But dont know why it happened. And it happened again today morning, when I was trying to pull Swtich logs, I couldnt do it. When every i tried doing a telnet session to the switch its refused to connect it. Tried pinging it didnt worked out. Then did a serial connection to check IP address of the switch it was all the same.

But dont know why its happening but when ever it happens, it comes back up after half and hour automatically.

Any idea any one!!!!!!!!!!

Thank You

Rama

anything in the logs of the switch ?

Hello Dynamox,

Nope nothing in error dump, nothing in logs, did check whether the CP failed over or not, but that was not the case.  Just ran a support save for the switch, thinking of opening up a case and submitting that support save.

But anyhelp before that would be really good help for me.

Thank You

Rama

Hello,

My recommendation would be when you have a login problem via the network to go to the switch and try a crossover cable connection to the switch and see if this works as was previously reocmmended.   If you have problems via the network connection but not via the cross over cable you have something that is either misconfigured or bad on the IP network.    Misconfigured hubs, switches, or firewals and can cause issues.   It could also be over utilization on the ethernet, bad cable, etc.   I would recommend if it is network related getting an IP trace via tools like Ethereal and see what you see in the trace as it should either show time outs, invalid addresses, etc.

If you still find issues when connecting via the cross over cable you could have an issue with the switch but it is not as likely as network issues.    The error logs for the ethernet port would show the ethernet port having issues.

Thank you.

Hi,

Did you checked the link light on the management port? Assuming that you did, please provide the details of your IP network, ie. what all devices fall in between your management PC and the management port of the Brocade switch. Are there too many devices involved, like routers, switches & hubs etc? If so one of these can be the cause of the problem, to make sure, as suggested earlier by others, you may try doing a traceroute through any trace tool to see till what point the connection is working. Also at the same time, while you are unable to ping the management port, do try to connect a PC / Laptop directly to the management port through a cross over cable (point to point) as suggested earlier by others, to narrow down the possibilities between the Brocade switch or the network. Next plan of action will depend upon if its a Brocade switch issue or the network issue.

If this happens exactly for half an hour every time (and resumes communication thereafter) it may be more of a logical issue than a physical issue.

Thanks.

Hello Rama,

Have you tried logging into the switch as root and issuing the following commands:

execute 'ifconfig eth0 down'

execute 'ifconfig eth0 up'

Think of it as a soft reboot for the connection

Best Regards,

Ayman    

Hey thanks every one for the feedback. Well I dont know what happened with the IP connectivity. I did IP trace to the switch, every thing was alright couldnt find anything wrong. But when I did IP trace, I was able to connect to the Switch through IP connectivity.

But thanks anyways guys for the help, just parying it doesnt happen again. Cause still dont know what happened.

Thank You
Rama

Hello Rama,

I'm glad the issue was resolved, if possible could you please mark the question as Answered (helpful or correct)? This shows your appreciation for the help you recieved from other community members

Thanks for your assistance and participation in the Support Forums.

Best Regards,

Ayman

Check your network configuration and make sure it is not set for DHCP.  My assumption is that you are using a static IP

Hi Rama

  Not sure if your problem is fixed or not - but for what it is worth.

   I have found that in the Brocade world you need to have the config of the e/net port on your laptop the same as that on the Brocade. IOW if the switch is set to Auto then your laptop must be set to auto as well. It normally occurs if the customer has "customised" his e/net port on the switch to be eg, 100 Full Duplex and our laptops are normally set to auto. It always seems to cause issues during firmwaredowload or log collections.

HTH

Hans

Hello Hans,

Thanks for the information. But to be frank, I havent seen the same problem coming back again. I dont know what happened and how it got fixed, but right now its working good. But I think your solution might be a some thing which I never looked in too. Well I noted down what you said, will look in to it and lets see if I can get some thing out of it.

Thank You

Rama