Smarts IP: Discovering a connection between two devices that are not physically connected

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:




Smarts IP is discovering a connection between two devices that are not physically connected

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Cause

From the debug enabled log we can see the following connection getting created:

Connection - 1
IF-sy-nmc2-ch-beb-f-001/2 [ethernet1/2]<->PORT-sy-eimv-ch-nyo-s-120/2.44 [Gi2/0/44] [<LS:LRI> *** SEKOT ***]
Switch Port - PORT-sy-eimv-ch-nyo-s-120/2.44 [Gi2/0/44] [<LS:LRI> *** SEKOT ***]
Bridges MAC - MAC-00-10-DB-FF-20-80 - 0.16.219.255.32.128

Corresponding Log -
*** DEBUG *** ic-cisco-vlan-br-stp.asl 31-May-2010 16:38:40 MEST Device: sy-eimv-ch-nyo-s-120DOT1D_TP_FDB_PORT: .1.3.6.1.2.1.17.4.3.1.2.[0.16.219.255.32.128] = 98

The Show MAC output for this device shows that some of the interfaces have learned about the peer MAC.

Resolution

Make sure that this MAC addresses have not been manually configured. If this is not the case, the connection might have existed in the past and you may need to clean up the MAC Table of the device, wait for sometime and then rediscover it. You can also check the "mac aging limit" parameter for this device.

Additional Information

The details below were gathered in order to troubleshoot this issue:

• Debug enabled IP log
• MIBWalk of the device in question
• show mac table output for the Device CLI
• VLAN walk for the device (via the UpdatedpollBrTable.pl tool which is available under /disks/smrtsupport/tools/Perl For Walking VLAN)