35 Industrial Way
PO Box 5005
Rochester, NH 03867-5005
(603)332-9400
CUSTOMER RELEASE NOTES
SmartSTACK Fast Ethernet Switches
ELS100-24TX, ELS100-24TXG, and ELS100-24TXM
Firmware Version 2.01.07
(Release Notes Revised February 7, 2000)
INTRODUCTION:
The ELS100-24TX SmartSTACK Fast Ethernet Switch provides 24 10/100 Mbps RJ45 ports.
The ELS100-24TXG SmartSTACK Fast Ethernet Switch provides 24 10/100 Mbps RJ45 ports and 2 GPIM
interface slots for Gigabit connectivity via Cabletron GPIM modules. The GPIMs add two additional ports, 25
and 26, for a total of 26 potentially active ports.
The ELS100-24TXM SmartSTACK Fast Ethernet Switch provides 24 10/100 Mbps RJ45 ports and 2
100BASE-FX multimode and/or singlemode fiber SC ports via a plug-in module (EPIM100-2F2/2F3/2F4).
RJ45 ports 1 and 2 are disabled when the fiber ports are installed for a total of 24 potentially active ports.
It is recommended that one thoroughly review this release note prior to the installation or
upgrade of this product.
FIRMWARE SPECIFICATION:
Status
Version No.
2.01.07
2.01.00
2.00.02
1.00.02
1.00.01
1.00.00
Version Displayed as *
2.1.1.7
Type
Release Date
12/10/99
08/13/99
02/11/99
11/01/98
09/01/98
08/01/98
Current Version
Previous Version
Previous Version
Previous Version
Previous Version
Previous Version
Customer
Customer
Customer
Customer
Customer
Customer
2.1.0.0
2.0.0.2
1.0.0.2
1.0.0.1
1.0.0.0
* Note: This is the version displayed by local and remote management.
HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY:
ALL
BOOTPROM COMPATIBILITY:
Bootprom Version: 1.01 or greater
NETWORK MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE SUPPORT:
2/7/00 P/N: 9032741-08
Subject to Change Without Notice
Page 1 of 7
35 Industrial Way
PO Box 5005
Rochester, NH 03867-5005
(603)332-9400
CUSTOMER RELEASE NOTES
1. Support for the “Hunt Group” protocol (Smarttrunking) mode of port trunking was removed. Port
trunking is still supported. All trunking protocol selections were removed from the Trunking
Configuration Menu.
2. Changing port names via Cabletron WebView would not be saved to non-volatile memory. --This has
been fixed.
3. When connecting with Telnet from Sun Solaris 2.6, 2.7 and Red Hat Linux 5.2 and 6.0 into the switch,
extra asterisk (*) characters were displayed and each password character was echoed back. This has
been fixed.
4. Port mirroring options have been changed so that transmit and receive can now be set to yes/no
independently. Both can now be enabled at the same time; this was not possible in previous firmware
versions.
5. A new feature has been added to the Spanning Tree configuration screen in the user interface: menu
item “h. Spanning Tree Standby Enable”, which has allowable settings of YES or NO. The default
setting is YES. With this setting there is a 30-second forwarding delay time. If set to NO, all ports will
go into forwarding mode within approximately one second (Fast Port). This setting can be used to
avoid timeouts (with resulting failure to connect) at workstations directly attached to the switch. Note
that this setting affects all ports, and can not be set on an individual port basis.
The Spanning Tree Standby configuration option has also been added to the Web-Based
Management, and can be found in the Switch Configuration, then Spanning Tree Configuration
menus.
Note: A new MIB object has been added to the Cabletron Proprietary MIB, and is described here as a
supplement to Table 5-2 in the Installation and User Guide:
Variable
Description
SwitchSpanningTreeStandby
Globally enable/disable Spanning Tree Standby on the switch.
6. A change has been made which will prevent a mis-configuration of Port Mirroring. Port mirroring mis-
configuration causes the feature to be enabled in the hardware although the configuration screen
indicates it is disabled. A mis-configuration occurs when the mirrored port and mirroring port are
selected from two different clusters.
7. A verification prompt was added to eliminate the danger of accidentally enabling port mirroring. The
prompt is displayed if the current state of port mirroring is disabled and the user presses the “F” key to
enable port mirroring on the configuration menu.
8. Using Netscape Navigator for Web management had problems when the “reload” command was
invoked. This has been fixed.
9. When configuring VLANs, the user could not assign specific VLAN IDs. This has been fixed.
10. The dot1qNextFreeLocalVlanIndex should return “0”. This has been fixed.
11. A new feature has been added, whereby the switch will save all configuration information to non-
volatile memory before a TFTP file transfer request is processed.
12. A change has been made whereby the default is for diagnostic testing to be OFF. Diagnostics can be
enabled through the user interface: select System Configuration, then Power Up Diagnostics to toggle
between YES (enabled) and No (disabled).
13. SNMP Interface Index values were incorrectly returning the wrong port numbers (it would return Port
Number +1). – This has been fixed.
14. Fixed Spanning Tree bug: According to 802.1d, right after a topology change, root should use shorter
aging timeout (forward delay) instead of 5 minutes. It should use this timeout for (forward delay + max
age).
15. A bug that allowed system MAC addresses to be improperly aged out, causing loss of TCP/IP
connections, had previously existed. -- This has been fixed.
2/7/00 P/N: 9032741-08
Subject to Change Without Notice
Page 3 of 7
35 Industrial Way
PO Box 5005
Rochester, NH 03867-5005
(603)332-9400
CUSTOMER RELEASE NOTES
16. When a 2-port fiber module was present in an ELS100-24TXM, the diagnostic tests on the fiber ports
would sometimes fail. – This has been fixed.
KNOWN RESTRICTIONS AND LIMITATIONS:
1. Upgrading 1.00.0X firmware to 2.00.02 or greater erases configuration information.
When upgrading firmware from any 1.00.0X version to 2.00.02 or greater, the switch configuration
information such as IP address, VLANs, etc. will be lost and must be reprogrammed. (Upgrades from
version 2.00.02 to any higher version do not erase the configuration.)
2. In order to use the embedded Web Management feature when upgrading from any 1.00.0X version to
2.00.02 or greater, two file downloads must be performed. First, the image file (2xxxx.dnl) must be
downloaded to the switch and then a second file (2xxxx.web) must be downloaded for Web
Management. (Note: This applies only to upgrades, as new units will be configured with the
appropriate files at the time
of manufacture.)
3. Certain traffic patterns may occasionally place addresses into the forwarding table that have not been
actually seen by the switch. The Source MAC address of error frames (64 bytes or greater in length) is
improperly learned by the switch.
4. Error and dropped packet statistics reported on the “Switch Summary and Individual Port Statistics”
screen may not synchronize properly with each other; dependant on the traffic flow through the switch.
5. Broadcast frames increment the SNMP “ifOutOctets” counter for ports that have no link.
6. When new entries are made to the SNMP RMON log table, they are not done so sequentially.
7. VLAN must be enabled to use Class of Service (priority queuing).
8. ELS100-24TX: The maximum number of port based VLANs that can be configured on the switch is
eight.
ELS100-24TXG/24TXM: The maximum number of port based VLANs that can be configured on
switches manufactured in week 9908 and later (and running this version of
firmware) is 128. Any VLAN ID within the range of 0-4095 is valid, but only
128 VLANs can be created on the switch at one time.
(Note: Units manufactured prior to week 9908 will support only eight VLANs.)
9. The broadcast performance on one group of 8 ports (1-8, 9-16, or 17-24) is less than that of the ports
on the switch; dependent on which switch cluster broadcasts are being passed to the CPU.
10. When VLAN operation on the switch is enabled, the overall throughput performance of the switch
drops due to the fact that internally, each packet passing through the switch is appended with a four
byte IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tag.
11. When using the port mirroring feature, the mirroring and mirrored (source and destination) ports must
be in the same switch cluster.(i.e. Group of 8 ports)
12. When using port mirroring, traffic rates on the mirroring port may be less than those on the mirrored
port; dependent on the traffic flow through the switch.
13. Discard address filtering rules can be overwritten. If a packet is received by the switch with a source
MAC address that is the same as a static address set to be discarded, the discard rule will be
overwritten, allowing packets with the source address to be forwarded through the switch.
14. When transmitting packets out of a port, the packet size statistics counters on the Port Statistics
screen do not increment properly. The counters do properly increment for packets received on the port.
15. Firmware upgrades to version 2.00.XX and later on switches running boot code version 1.02 or earlier
can only be made in-band via TFTP, not out-of-band via XMODEM. The Boot code version must be
upgraded to 1.05 or greater for download via XMODEM.
16. The switch will execute a software reset after performing a TFTP download. The reset will occur
whether or not the download was successful or failed.
2/7/00 P/N: 9032741-08
Subject to Change Without Notice
Page 4 of 7
35 Industrial Way
PO Box 5005
Rochester, NH 03867-5005
(603)332-9400
CUSTOMER RELEASE NOTES
17. If Hewlett-Packard GBIC (Gigabit Ethernet Interface Converter) modules are inserted/removed on the
ELS100-24TXG while power is applied to the switch, they may become damaged. The damage results
in the presence and type identity of the GBIC not being recognized by software. Data will still be
switched successfully through the port.
18. The following issues are present when using the Port Trunking feature in this release of firmware:
-
When configuring Port Trunking, the Spanning Tree path costs on ports can become
misconfigured.
-
-
Ports in different VLANs can be placed into the same trunk, which should not be allowed.
Trying to add a port to a trunk that has been created in a different switch cluster (group of 8 ports)
causes the ports in the trunk to be erroneously deleted.
-
-
When a trunk group is configured, and the first port of that trunk group becomes disabled, local
management reports that the entire trunk status is disabled; this is a false signal. The status can
be corrected by disabling and re-enabling that port.
This release does not provide compatibility with DEC Hunt Group proprietary protocol mode of
operation; this functionality will be provided in a future release.
Please refer to the addendum to the ELS100-24TXG/TXM User Guides (Document # 9033194) for
detailed information regarding port trunking configuration.
19. When a BootP server and DHCP server are both present in the network, in some cases only the IP
address will be acquired; the firmware image will not be received. Both protocols work properly when
only one server type is present. This condition also existed in earlier versions of firmware. Cabletron’s
recommendation is to remove the DHCP server and reboot the switch; this will cause the switch to send
BootP requests and receive an image from the BootP server.
20. When Microsoft Internet Explorer is used to access Cabletron WebView management, the initial start-
up time is excessive (approximately 20 minutes), after which it performs normally. To avoid this delay,
the switch’s IP address should be added to Internet Explorer’s Proxies “Ignore” area.
21. When using Cabletron WebView, an ELS100-24TXM which does not have an uplink installed is
incorrectly reported to be an ELS100-24TX. This condition also existed in earlier versions of firmware.
22. Older versions of ELS100-24TX may not support the Cabletron WebView image download, due to
insufficient memory.
23. When configuring 802.1Q trunks, the VLAN that contains the ports configured as trunks must not have
those ports on the egress list for that VLAN. This results in a mis-configuration.
24. When configuring Port Trunks as 802.1Q trunks, you must add the port trunks to the egress list as a
pair. Adding them separately results in an error reporting a VLAN violation.
25. When performing a TFTP file download to the switch, it may be necessary to repeat the process to
successfully receive the entire file. Also, if a file that has been received is corrupt, the switch may enter
a state where it is expecting to receive a new image via XMODEM download. This can be verified and
corrected by invoking a local management session to the console (serial) port; the switch will send the
character “c” to the console station until an XMODEM transfer of a new firmware image file is sent. For
additional information, please reference http://www.cabletron.com/support/techtips/tk0564-9.html
TFTP/BootP instructions.
26. Contrary to the user manuals, the READ/WRITE and READ-ONLY passwords are case-sensitive in this
version of firmware. The passwords must be typed exactly as they were created.
27. (Added 2/7/2000): The READ ONLY password is not saved to non-volatile memory. It will become
effective and active when created, but will not be saved when the device is reset. Resetting the device
clears the READ ONLY password. Also, when the READ/WRITE password is modified and saved, this
will clear the READ ONLY password, allowing READ access with just a carriage return at the Login:
prompt. These problems will be resolved in the next firmware release.
Any other problems than those listed above should be reported to our Technical Support Staff.
2/7/00 P/N: 9032741-08
Subject to Change Without Notice
Page 5 of 7
35 Industrial Way
PO Box 5005
Rochester, NH 03867-5005
(603)332-9400
CUSTOMER RELEASE NOTES
COMPLIANCE SUPPORT:
Compliance Level
Year 2000
Compliant
YES*
Known Anomalies: None.
*
No “Real-Time Clock” is supported with the ELS100-24TX, ELS100-24TXG and ELS100-24TXM Firmware
Version 2.01.07.
IEEE STANDARDS SUPPORT:
Standard
Title
IEEE 802.1D
IEEE 802.1P
IEEE 802.1Q
IEEE 802.2
IEEE 802.3
IEEE 802.3i
IEEE 802.3u
IEEE 802.3u
IEEE 802.3x
Transparent Bridging Specifications (ISO/IEC 10038)
Traffic Class Expediting and Dynamic Multicast Filtering
Virtual Bridged Local Area Networks
Local Area Networks, Logical Link Control (LLC)
CSMA/CD 9 (ISO/IEC 8802-3)
10Base-T (ISO/IEC 8802-3, clause 14)
100Base-TX (ISO/IEC 8802-3, clause 25)
100Base-FX
Flow Control
IETF STANDARDS MIB SUPPORT:
RFC No.
1213
Title
MIB-II
Groups Supported
System, Interfaces, Address Translation,
IP, ICMP, TCP, UDP, Transmission, and
SNMP
1398
1493
Ethernet MIB
Bridge MIB
Ethernet-specific statistics subgroup of
the MIB-II Transmission Group
Spanning Tree, Forwarding Table
Information, and Configuration
Statistics, History, Alarm, and Event
Stack Table
1757
2233
NA
RMON MIB
Interfaces MIB
802.1p MIB
802.1Q MIB
ExtBase, Priority
Base, Filtering Database, Static, VLAN
NA
CABLETRON PRIVATE ENTERPRISE MIB SUPPORT:
Title
Description
Provides management information for
the next generation of the ELS100
product line, part of the SmartStack
product line.
ctELS100-NG-mib.txt,
Revision: 1.03.00
ct-smarttrunk-mib.txt
Provides definitions for Cabletron's
Enterprise-specific port-trunking MIB.
2/7/00 P/N: 9032741-08
Subject to Change Without Notice
Page 6 of 7
35 Industrial Way
PO Box 5005
Rochester, NH 03867-5005
(603)332-9400
CUSTOMER RELEASE NOTES
Cabletron Private Enterprise MIBs are available in ASN.1 format from the Cabletron Web Site at:
http://www.cabletron.com/support/mibs/ . Indexed MIB documentation is also available.
SNMP TRAP SUPPORT:
RFC No.
RFC 1157
Title
generic 0
IETF SNMP
coldStart
linkDown
linkUp
authenticationFailure
enterpriseSpecific
2
3
4
6
RFC 1493
RFC 1757
IETF Bridge, ENTERPRISE dot1dBridge --
1.3.6.1.2.1.17
newRoot
topologyChange
specific 1
2
IETF RMON, ENTERPRISE
rmon -- 1.3.6.1.2.1.16
risingAlarm
fallingAlarm
1
2
CABLETRON PRIVATE ENTERPRISE TRAP SUPPORT:
Title
None. (Please reference “SNMP TRAP SUPPORT” Section above.)
GLOBAL SUPPORT:
By Phone: (603) 332-9400
By Fax:
(603) 337-3075
By Mail: Cabletron Systems, Inc.
P.O. Box 5005
Rochester, NH 03867-5005
For information regarding the latest firmware available, recent release note revisions, or if you require additional assistance,
please visit the Cabletron Support Web Site.
2/7/00 P/N: 9032741-08
Subject to Change Without Notice
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