András,
under IOS one can configure "keepalive" settings of Fa/Gi/Te
interfaces of Cisco 4500 and Fa ports of Cisco 2900 series as well,
but as much as I tested with 2900 series, while keepalive frames are
actually sent, in case of loop(I made a RJ45 hardware loop), the port
is not shut down.

On the other hand, in case of Cisco 2950, the keepalive frame indeed
forced port to "err-disabled" state when I plugged my RJ45
hardware-loop into the port:

00:06:53: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
00:06:55: %ETHCNTR-3-LOOP_BACK_DETECTED: Keepalive packet loop-back
detected on FastEthernet0/2.
00:06:55: %PM-4-ERR_DISABLE: loopback error detected on Fa0/2, putting
Fa0/2 in err-disable state
00:06:56: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface
FastEthernet0/2, changed state to down
00:06:57: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/2, changed state to down

When I set "no keepalive" to this very same switch port under C2950
and connect the same RJ45 hardware loop, the port stayed up.

By "Type 2" cabling you mean so-called "Cat2"(Two shielded twisted
pairs + four voice grade twisted pairs) cabling? And the idea is that
in case there is a loop on physical layer, the switch port receives a
keepalive frame with it's own MAC address as a destination and source
address and shuts down the port?
In the light of modern cabling standards, the "keepalive" feature
isn't very useful, is it?

regards,
martin

2011/7/31 Tóth András <[email protected]>:
> Hi Martin,
>
> Keepalives are sent on the Catalyst 2940, 2950, 2950-LRE, 2955, 2970,
> 3550, 3560 or 3750 switch to prevent loops in the network. The primary
> reason for the keepalives is to prevent loops as a result of Type 2
> cabling which does cause a loop in some situations. A loop is detected
> when the switch receives back it's own keepalive pakcet.
>
> Keepalives are sent on ALL interfaces by default in 12.1EA based
> software. Starting in 12.2SE based releases, keepalives are NO longer
> sent by default on fiber and uplink interfaces.
>
> Best regards,
> Andras
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 3:51 AM, Martin T <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I have a following connection:
>>
>> T60[eth0] <-> [Fa0/2]WS-C2950C-24
>>
>> ..and port Fa0/2 in the switch in configured like this:
>>
>> WS-C2950C-24#sh run int Fa0/2
>> Building configuration...
>>
>> Current configuration : 149 bytes
>> !
>> interface FastEthernet0/2
>>  description -> T60
>>  switchport mode access
>>  switchport nonegotiate
>>  no cdp enable
>>  spanning-tree bpdufilter enable
>> end
>>
>> WS-C2950C-24#
>>
>> ..and "keepalive" signals are sent after every 10s:
>>
>> WS-C2950C-24#sh int Fa0/2 | i Keepalive
>>  Keepalive set (10 sec)
>> WS-C2950C-24#
>>
>> Now if I tcpdump those frames, they look like this:
>>
>> root@martin-ThinkPad-T60:~# tcpdump -i eth0 -e -XX -c 4
>> tcpdump: WARNING: eth0: no IPv4 address assigned
>> tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
>> listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes
>> 03:26:35.984629 00:12:7f:13:8f:c2 (oui Unknown) > 00:12:7f:13:8f:c2
>> (oui Unknown), ethertype Loopback (0x9000), length 60:
>>        0x0000:  0012 7f13 8fc2 0012 7f13 8fc2 9000 0000  ................
>>        0x0010:  0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
>>        0x0020:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
>>        0x0030:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000            ............
>> 03:26:45.984971 00:12:7f:13:8f:c2 (oui Unknown) > 00:12:7f:13:8f:c2
>> (oui Unknown), ethertype Loopback (0x9000), length 60:
>>        0x0000:  0012 7f13 8fc2 0012 7f13 8fc2 9000 0000  ................
>>        0x0010:  0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
>>        0x0020:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
>>        0x0030:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000            ............
>> 03:26:55.984277 00:12:7f:13:8f:c2 (oui Unknown) > 00:12:7f:13:8f:c2
>> (oui Unknown), ethertype Loopback (0x9000), length 60:
>>        0x0000:  0012 7f13 8fc2 0012 7f13 8fc2 9000 0000  ................
>>        0x0010:  0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
>>        0x0020:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
>>        0x0030:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000            ............
>> 03:27:05.984651 00:12:7f:13:8f:c2 (oui Unknown) > 00:12:7f:13:8f:c2
>> (oui Unknown), ethertype Loopback (0x9000), length 60:
>>        0x0000:  0012 7f13 8fc2 0012 7f13 8fc2 9000 0000  ................
>>        0x0010:  0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
>>        0x0020:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
>>        0x0030:  0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000            ............
>> 4 packets captured
>> 4 packets received by filter
>> 0 packets dropped by kernel
>> root@martin-ThinkPad-T60:~#
>>
>> As you can see, they are sent by switch port after every 10s. The
>> source and destination MAC address are the same and ethertype is
>> 0x9000 and it looks like the frame is just padded with zeros. I can
>> change the keepalive messages interval between 1s and 32767s or
>> disable keepalive frames by "no keepalive" or "keepalive 0".
>> What are those "keepalive" frames used for? Some historical
>> configuration setting? What should my T60 NIC do with those frames as
>> at the moment it responds nothing?
>>
>>
>> regards,
>> martin
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