On 28 Nov 2009, at 22:42, Felix Nkansah wrote:

One of my field engineers at a remote site has reported a problem to me, one
which I find rather strange but yet to confirm for myself.

A Catalyst 2960 switch at the remote site is linked to a switch at a Central
site via radio (bridged).

However, besides the fact that connectivity tests between the two sites are failing, his observation is that when he issues the "SHOW CDP NEI" command
on the remote C2960 switch, he sees the switch itself appearing as its
neighbor rather than the other switch at the central location which is
typically the output he expected.

I have personally never seen a Cisco device showing itself as it's own
neighbor in a 'show cdp neighbor' output.

What do you know to be the cause of this problem?

We used to see symptoms like fairly regularly that with certain provider's telco circuits when they went wrong. Usually it meant that a line card somewhere within the telco circuit had gone into a soft- loop mode. This sort of soft-loop is a deliberate and useful feature when building circuits and testing each leg of the circuit at installation time as it means they can test each section of the link without needing someone to physically put a loop of cable at the far end.

But if the soft-loop feature had somehow randomly switched on then it meant there was a problem with our circuit. It could happen due to a software bug, or a hardware fault...or maybe human error if an operator at the telco remotely applied a loop on the wrong device when trying to commision a new circuit somewhere else. Sometimes it would go away by restarting the telco equipment. Sometimes apparently it needed a linecard change ( in the telco kit not in our Cisco kit. ) And maybe sometimes somebody at the telco quietly removed the soft- loop without admitting they created it by mistake.

If there is a loop in place you might be able to detect/prove it even more by forcing some traffic out out and watching the packets counts in/out increase by the same amounts as each packets you transmit arrives back to you on your receive.

I dont know the nature of your radio circuit but it could be a problem with a soft-loop within that equipment perhaps. Do you control all the hardware for that or do you lease the circuit from someone ?

Anthony Ryan





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