DFE 'show system hardware' displays Chassis MAC instead of Serial#

FAQ_User — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Article ID: 5594

Products
DFE

Protocols/Features
SNMP

Goals
Determine serial number via MIBs
Serial number

Symptoms
Serial number incorrect
Cannot access chassis serial number
Displayed serial number does not match white sticker
What is described as the chassis serial number is the MAC address
'show system hardware'
"Chassis Serial Number"

Cause
The chassis models supporting FTM2 (6C107, 7C107, 7C105P, 7C103, 7C111) have an ID chip because the DFE design calls for knowing when a blade is being installed in a different chassis (5037).

Upon system login and as output of the 'show system hardware' command, as shown below there is provision to use that ID chip as an information source for display of the Chassis Serial Number:
Username: admin
Password:

M A T R I X N 3 P L A T I N U M
Command Line Interface

Enterasys Networks, Inc.
50 Minuteman Rd.
Andover, MA 01810-1008 USA

Phone: +1 978 684 1000
E-mail: support@enterasys.com
WWW: http://www.enterasys.com

(c) Copyright Enterasys Networks, Inc. 2005

Chassis Serial Number: 0001f47f17c9
Chassis Firmware Revision: 05.11.25

DFE Platinum(su)->show system hardware

CHASSIS HARDWARE INFORMATION
----------------------------

Chassis Type: Matrix N3 Platinum
Chassis Serial Number: 0001f47f17c9
Chassis Power Supply 1: Installed & Operating, AC, Not Redundant
Chassis Power Supply 2: Not Installed
Chassis Fan: Installed & Operating
PoE Power Supply 1: Info Not Available
PoE Power Supply 2: Info Not Available
PoE Power Supply 3: Info Not Available
PoE Power Supply 4: Info Not Available
Min Switch Chip Revision: 1.50

SLOT HARDWARE INFORMATION
-------------------------

SLOT 1
Model: 7H4382-49
Serial Number: 031800153248
Part Number: 9403745
--More-- next page, one line, quit
. . .

Though this screen displays the true Serial Number for the individual slot modules, what is displayed for the chassis is actually the chassis MAC Address.

As an alternate approach for the same net effect, SNMP may be used to retrieve from entPhysicalSerialNum = 1.3.6.1.2.1.47.1.1.1.1.11 information similar to what is shown above for the cli. Instance 1 contains the chassis MAC address, and instances 71 through 77 contain the serial numbers of modules installed into slots 1-7.

Solution
FAD (Functions as Designed)

The chassis Serial Number and MAC Address are displayed on the white sticker attached to the front of the chassis. However, only the chassis MAC Address is available to the software (cli, SNMP, etc). Due to the hardware design, there is no way to electronically obtain the Serial Number displayed on the sticker - so the MAC Address is used as a reasonable substitute in the screens shown above.

On the plus side, applications that reference the chassis Serial Number typically are merely looking for a globally unique identifier and don't particularly care what it is.

To do network inventory tracking by means of the Serial Number, it is necessary to manually correlate the electronically accessed chassis MAC Address with the visually accessed sticker Serial Number. This mapping will always remain the same.

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DFE 'show system hardware' displays Chassis MAC instead of Serial#