800-Series Inband Management Fails or is Unreliable

FAQ_User — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 00:05:00 GMT

Article ID: 15043

Products
800-Series

Changes
Deploying an 800-Series switch within a network which already contains at least one 800-Series switch.

Symptoms
Can't contact the host IP address.
Switch host does not respond to inband communication, or initially responds and then hangs.
Inband host management protocols (e.g. Webview (aka Web User Interface or WEB UI), Telnet, SSH, SNMP, PING) are nonfunctional or unreliable.

Cause
This product is configured with default IP address 192.168.10.1, using default subnet mask 255.255.255.0.

As such, it requires no serial management session before it may be managed inband. Simply connect a managing device (having a unique IP address within the 192.168.10.x subnet) via one of the ethernet ports, then open the host management session.

However, if such a unit is placed into a network which already contains at least one unit of the same IP address, then management of all such units in this environment will be problematic due to the presence of duplicate IP addresses. This is the root cause of the observed symptoms.

Solution/Workaround
Functions as Designed (FAD).

Default IP address 192.168.10.1 is for initial IP contact with the switch host. This IP address should be changed to a more suitable unique value as soon as possible, to avoid the possiblity of duplicate IP addresses as multiple units are deployed now or in the future.

It is expected that the immediate result of such a change will be loss of the current inband connection ("Destination Host Unreachable" or "Request timed out")(5621). Simply change the managing device's IP address to match the switch's new IP subnet (though not its full IP address), or set up a default gateway in order to connect to it from a different subnet. In either case, inband communication should again be supported.

Also see this 800-Series HowTo Video which demonstrates the configuration of a management IP address.
Also see this 800-Series HowTo Video which demonstrates how to enable SSH, not enabled by default.

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800-Series Inband Management Fails or is Unreliable