3348 Web management -- how to?

Question

I have a 3348 that has been in use for about 18 months now, and I believe it is rebooting itself multiple times a day (as we are having remote and local networking outages every once in a while, with some Win XP stations showing no connection, then a few seconds later, showing a connection has been made).   I have never updated the firmware on the unit since it was installed, and, being web managed, thought that would be easiest (compared to CLI interface).  Apparently, the 3348 can DHCP an IP address for itself, but does it do that by default?  How do I determine the IP address what was assigned to it?  (our Sonicwall is the DHCP server for the network, and it only shows 3 DHCP clients, and none of those responded to the web URL to manage the 3348).   Can someone help out with some quick tips on what is needed to web manage this device?  I want to look at the logs, and want to update the firmware.  Can this be accomplished with the web interface?   I've looked through the user guide, but that CLI interface looks intimidating...   Thanks.

brrrdog · Answer

Yes, I suppose the CLI is a little intimidating but the first section of the user manual contains step by step instructions for assigning an ip via the cli.  To start you could try typing 'show ip interface' to see if there is an ip on there already.   After that, I don't remember having any problems with connecting via the web.  Note, you'll need a tftp program to update the firmware.  I'd recommend the free one available on solar winds website ( http://support.solarwinds.net/updates/SelectProgramFree.cfm)

lancorp · Answer

OK, just need a little more help. Believe me, I have poured over the documentation again and again, and it just is not clear for a first timer.

Now, I have an IP address assigned and can login thru the web management interface. I have successfully downloaded the new firmware to the 3348, but I am not sure how to enable it. Do I chose "Image 2" after restart setting? I've tried just restarting the switch after downloading, but no changes.

The documentation just doesn't go into enough detail!

Also, regarding IP address assignment--apparently, you cannot assign an IP address to the device, only to a port. Right now, I have an IP assigned to an unused port that is NOT in the subnet of the rest of the network. My question is this--can I assign an unused IP address to the port on the 3348 that the server is plugged into, and be able to manage the switch from the server, or will that screw up access to the server?

It's all very confusing!

Any advise is appreciated.

Thanks.

DELL-Cuong N. · Answer

Here is a link to the doc for managing files:

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

You can see from here that the switch has two image areas (image-1 and image-2). One of these images is active (you can see which image is active on the "Active Image" page - see the "Resetting the Active Image" section). When you are doing image download to the switch, the switch will always download to the standby image. So after you are done, the image you just downloaded is in the standby bank instead of the active bank. Now if you just reload the switch you are still running off the same bank so nothing changed. To run off the other bank go to the "Active Image" page and select the other bank to be used "After Reset" before you reload the switch.

Note that if you are stacking the switches you must make sure you load the new image to all the switches and make sure their active image after reload are all setup to the write FW bank.

Here is a link to the section on specifying device IP:

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

I suggest that you always assign IP address to a VLAN instead of to a port. If you assign an IP to a port then only that port has the IP address and so you must be connected to the port to get access to the switch management IP address on that port. This is too inconvenient in most cases.

The better solution is to select a VLAN for management. Typically the default VLAN 1 is used for management and by default all ports are member of VLAN 1 so if you don't use any other VLAN then by assigning an IP to the VLAN 1 you can manage your switch using that IP from any ports that belong to the VLAN. If you use many VLANs and you decide to use a different VLAN for management then assign your IP address to that other management VLAN. Now if you add ports to the management VLAN then which ever port is part of that management VLAN can be used to reach the management interface of the switch.

Cuong.

Networking General

3348 Web management -- how to?

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