ethernet duplex and speed issue, smartups net management card

[Anonymous user]

G'day

SmartUPS models in local use are equipped with network management cards - either AP9617 or AP9619 model. Each NMC ethernet port is connected to a cisco switch ethernet port (cisco catalyst 3550 or 3560 model). Both NMC ehternet ports and cisco switch ehternet ports are configured for auto-negotiation. Ethernet ports are operating at half duplex 100Mbps. However, both ports are capable to operate at full duplex 100Mbps and that's a setting one would expect to see as an outcome of an auto-negotiation process.

Is anyone experiencing a similar issue ?

Local NMC AOS is at version 3.5.5, SmartUPS & Matrix-UPS APP is at version 3.5.5.

Thanks for your comments and/or help.

Kind regards,

Martin

Message was edited by: martin_s

[BillP]

Hi:

I have seen cases where similar CISCO switches will auto negotiate to half duplex. I believe this is at the CISCO side, but can't be 100% sure why the CISCO switch would choose to go with half duplex over full. Obviously with a network card there isn't much traffic going back and forth, so it's generally little to no impact on how anything operates, but it's still an interesting inquiry. I'd be happy to look into this further. One question I have for you, though, is... Can you confirm that both the network card and the switch see it as operating at 100/Half? Or are they reporting different things? Also, our current firmware is 3.58, so if you wouldn't mind upgrading that to see if the issue persisted, that may also be useful. This process is outlined in the following knowledge base:

http://nam-en.apc.com/cgi-bin/nam_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=768&p_created=1010390400&p_...


Thanks!

[Anonymous user]

Hi,

to confirm your assumption, indeed both the network card and the switch report operating at 100/Half. Concerning the upgrade - I had to enable a FTP server to be able to upload the new firmware files to the network card flash. And what I found out is that NMC goes through a system restart + warmstart following the FTP server configuration change once a user logs out. Ethernet port auto-negotiation likely occured at some point during the restart as both the network card and the switch now report 100/Full. Please, see the sanitized logs output below (100/Half reported before the config change, 100/Full after restart).

the network card:

25.03.2009 23:46:33 UPS: Restored the local network management interface-to-UPS communication.
25.03.2009 23:46:07 System: Network service started. System IP is 11.11.11.11 from manually configured settings.
25.03.2009 23:46:07 System: Warmstart.
25.03.2009 23:45:36 System: Restarting. Configuration change.
25.03.2009 23:45:31 System: Configuration change. FTP server enable.
25.03.2009 23:45:17 System: Console user 'xxx' logged in from 10.10.10.10.

the switch:

Mar 25 23:45:49: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to down
Mar 25 23:45:50: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to down
Mar 25 23:45:53: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
Mar 25 23:45:54: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up


Both the NMC and the switch ethernet port are now still at 100/Full even after the firmware upgrade. NMC AOS is at version 3.6.1, SmartUPS & Matrix-UPS APP is at version 3.5.8. I expect the auto-neg issue is likely to repeat itself after the network card ethernet port physical disconnect & reconnect. I'll go through this test tomorrow and get back with the results.

Kind regards,

Martin

Message was edited by: martin_s

Message was edited by: martin_s

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Hi,

fortunately, my expectations were wrong. NMC ethernet port did well on disconnect & reconnect test, reporting an auto-negotiated 100/Full at reconnect. Also the duplex & speed configuration changes on the cisco switch side were reflected by the NMC ehternet port just fine. Similar vice-versa - a user has to remeber to logout and wait for a restart + warmstart for NMC config changes to apply. I hope for auto-neg to stay working fine, though I don't have a good idea what's behind the original issue I reported yesterday.
Thanks for your effort.

Kind regards,

Martin