Modular Ethernet Switch User’s Guide
Using the Console Interface
43
♦
State
Enables or disables the port. This amounts to turning the port on or off.
♦
Speed/Duplex
Selects the desired Speed and Duplex settings for the port. Possibilities include:
Auto
,
100M/Full
,
100M/Half
,
10M/Full
, or
10M/Half
. Choosing
Auto
enables NWay auto-configuration on
the port. If the port is a Gigabit Ethernet port,
1000M/Full
will be displayed in this field. Gigabit ports
also support auto-negotiation.
♦
Flow Ctrl
Toggles flow control
On
or
Off
. Flow control is useful during periods of heavy network
activity when the Switch’s buffers can receive too much traffic and fill up faster than the Switch can
forward the information. In such cases, the Switch will intervene and tell the transmitting device to
pause to allow the information in the port buffer to be sent.
♦
Priority
Selects
Normal
,
High
or
Low
. The Switch has two packet queues where incoming packets
wait to be processed for forwarding; a high priority and low priority queue. The high priority queue
should only be used for data in which latency can have adverse affects on the function of an application,
such as video or audio data, where latency can produce distorted sounds and images. Packets in the low
priority queue will not be processed unless the High priority queue is empty. Setting the port priority to
High
will deliver all packets arriving at the port to the high priority queue, a
Low
setting will send
them all to the low priority queue. The
Normal
setting causes the port to examine the packet for an
IEEE 802.1p/Q priority tag. If no tag exists, the packet will be sent to the low priority queue. If the
priority tag field in the packet header contains a value of 0-3, the packet will be placed in the low
priority queue; a value of 4-7 causes the packet to be placed in the high priority queue.
♦
Port Lock
When
Enabled
, automatic learning for all stations connected to this port will stop and
entries in the Forwarding Table for all devices residing on this port will age out. The only traffic this
port will allow is traffic from machines whose MAC address is manually entered in the Static
Forwarding Table.
♦
Broadcast Storm
Rising Action
This setting will be activated when a Broadcast Storm Rising
Threshold is met. When triggered, the port can be configured to
Do Nothing
,
Blocking
or
Block & Trap
.
The
Do Nothing
setting causes the switch to operate normally, in other words, ignore the broadcast
storm condition. The
Blocking
setting causes the port to drop all broadcast frames, thus isolating the
broadcast storm.
Block & Trap
performs the same action as
Blocking
, except it also sends a trap to the
designated Trap Recipient informing them of the situation. For more information on broadcast storms,
please refer to the previous chapter.
♦
Broadcast Storm
Rising Threshold
This setting defines a ceiling for the number of broadcast
packets per second on this port. Once met, the
Broadcast Storm Rising Action
(above) will be triggered.
The assigned number should be high enough to allow normal broadcast packets (which comprise
significant traffic) to be let through, while being low enough so that broadcast storms can be detected
early.
♦
Broadcast Storm
Falling Action
This setting will be activated when the Broadcast Storm Rising
Threshold
and then the Broadcast Storm Falling Threshold
are
each
met. This setting can be
configured to
Do Nothing
,
Forwarding
or
Forward & Trap
. The
Do Nothing
setting causes the switch to
operate normally, that is, to ignore the situation. If the port had met the
Broadcast Storm Rising Action
criteria and started
Blocking
broadcast packets, it will continue doing so. The
Forwarding
setting
causes the port to begin forwarding broadcast frames, thus removing the
Blocking
state imposed by the
Broadcast Storm Rising Action
.
Forward & Trap
performs the same action as
Forwarding
, except it
also sends a trap to the designated Trap Recipient informing them of the situation.
♦
Broadcast Storm Falling Threshold
This setting defines the number of broadcast packets per
second on this port which will trigger the
Broadcast Storm Falling Action
(above). This threshold will
only trigger an action if the
Broadcast Storm Rising Threshold
has first been reached. The assigned
number should be high enough to allow normal broadcast packets (which comprise significant traffic) to
be let through as early as possible, while being low enough so that broadcast storms are completely
eliminated.