Table of Contents
Release Notes for the Catalyst 1900 Series Standard Edition Switches, Version 8.01
November 9, 1998
These release notes provide information on the Catalyst 1900 series standard edition Ethernet switches (hereafter referred to as the Catalyst 1900 switches) using firmware version 8.01.
Note This document describes the problems resolved in the 8.01.00 firmware version.
The tracking numbers for some items in this document are added for your convenience.
Notes, cautions, and warnings in this document use the following conventions and symbols:
Note Means reader take note. Notes contain helpful suggestions or references to materials not contained in this document.
 | Caution
This caution symbol means reader be careful. In this situation, you might do something that could result in equipment damage or loss of data. |
 | Warning
This warning symbol means danger. You are in a situation that could cause bodily injury. Before you work on any equipment, be aware of the hazards involved with electrical circuitry and be familiar with standard practices for preventing accidents. (To see translations of the warnings that appear in this publication, refer to the Catalyst 1900 Series Installation and Configuration Guide.) |
The Catalyst 1900 switches are now shipped with firmware version 8.01.00. Depending on the hardware board revision of your switch, the minimum firmware releases listed in Table 1 are required.
The "System Revision" field on the System Configuration menu displays the board revision of your switch.
The Firmware Configuration Menu and the Console and Upgrade Configuration page display the firmware version in use.
The following information is for FCC compliance of Class A devices: This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class A digital device, pursuant to part 15 of the FCC rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference when the equipment is operated in a commercial environment. This equipment generates, uses, and can radiate radio-frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instruction manual, may cause harmful interference to radio communications. Operation of this equipment in a residential area is likely to cause harmful interference, in which case users will be required to correct the interference at their own expense.
| Warning
Class 1 laser product.
|
| Warning
Avoid exposure to the laser beam.
|
| Caution
When installing the switch, do not remove the rubber plugs from the fiber-optic ports or the rubber caps from the fiber-optic cable until you are ready to connect the cable. The plugs and caps protect the fiber-optic ports and cable from contamination and ambient light. |
The Catalyst 1900 series product family now includes a new switch that provides 24 10BaseT ports and 2 100-Mbps fiber ports (Figure 1). Both fiber ports (port A and port B) on the switch use MT-RJ connectors. The fiber-optic wavelength of the ports is 1300 nanometers.
You can configure each port for full-duplex or half-duplex operation. The default setting of the fiber ports is half duplex. If the fiber port is in full-duplex mode, you can connect it to another 100BaseFX-compatible device over distances of up to 2 kilometers by using multimode fiber-optic cable. If the fiber port is in half-duplex mode, you can connect it to another device within 412 meters of the switch.
To connect each fiber port on the switch to an SC or ST port on a 100BaseFX-compatible device in your network, you must use the appropriate MT-RJ fiber-optic patch cable. You can order MT-RJ patch cables from your cable vendor, or you can order these cables from Cisco:
- CAB-MTRJ-SC-MM-1M (1 meter, MT-RJ-to-SC multimode cable)
- CAB-MTRJ-SC-MM-3M (3 meter, MT-RJ-to-SC multimode cable)
- CAB-MTRJ-SC-MM-5M (5 meter, MT-RJ-to-SC multimode cable)
- CAB-MTRJ-ST-MM-1M (1 meter, MT-RJ-to-ST multimode cable)
- CAB-MTRJ-ST-MM-3M (3 meter, MT-RJ-to-ST multimode cable)
- CAB-MTRJ-ST-MM-5M (5 meter, MT-RJ-to-ST multimode cable)
Figure 1: Catalyst 1900 Switch with 24 10BaseT Ports and 2 100-Mbps Fiber Ports (Part Numbers WS-C1924F-A and WS-C1924F-EN)
Note Information---such as hardware descriptions, and installation and configuration procedures---in the Catalyst 1900 Series Installation and Configuration Guide applies to this new switch and its ports.
You can use this new switch in your network as you would the other Catalyst 1900 switches. For example, you can create a 100-Mbps redundant backbone network by connecting this new Catalyst 1900 switch to 100BaseFX backbone switches or routers, as shown in Figure 2. Each Catalyst 1900 switch connects to the two Catalyst 5000 switches or Cisco 7000 routers, shown in the top-left and top-right corners, in a redundant configuration. If connectivity is lost to one of the backbone routers or switches, the network uses the redundant connection.
Both Catalyst 1900 switches in this example are connected to the backbone switches or routers through the two 100-Mbps fiber ports in CollisionFree full-duplex mode. Multimode fiber-optic cable is used to connect the switch to the backbone devices. Therefore, the distance between each Catalyst 1900 switch and the backbone switch or router can be up to 2 kilometers.
Spanning-Tree Protocol on the Catalyst 1900 switches ensures that only one of the two connections from each switch is active (the primary link), ensuring that there are no loops in the network paths. If the primary link fails, the secondary link becomes active.
Figure 2: 100BaseFX Redundant Backbone
These are the problems resolved in the 8.01.00 firmware version:
- The web console password caching on the switch has been removed. The web console prompts for a password each time you access the web console for the first time from a particular web browser. [CSCdk23516]
- The switch no longer requests a new IP address via DHCP after one has been assigned either manually or via DHCP. [CSCdk36548]
- The switch now uses the same MAC address in all Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) and IP packets. [CSCdj30656]
- When the switch gathers information through Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), the switch no longer adds a null character at the end of the port ID of the neighboring device. [CSCdk43290]
- Remote Monitoring (RMON) can now occur on all ports concurrently. Previously, you could monitor a maximum of ten ports simultaneously.
- The switch automatically creates an entry per port in the RMON etherStatsTable. [CSCdk14345]
- To clear all cached domain name system addresses from the switch, use the Clear cached DNS entries option on the IP Configuration menu. [CSCdk02971]
- When using Netscape Communicator 4.xx on Sun workstations, minimized and maximized pages of the web console might not refresh properly. Click Reload to refresh the page.
- In addition, when using Netscape Communicator 4.xx on PCs and Sun workstations, resized pages of the web console might not refresh properly. Click Reload to refresh the page. [CSCdj85607]
- Click Reload from any web console page to display a fresh copy of the Basic System Configuration page, not the currently displayed page.
- When using Netscape Communicator 4.xx on Windows 95, clicking Apply after making changes to the Port Security Table page sometimes displays a blank page. Click Stop to redisplay the Port Security Table page with your changes saved. [CSCdj95153]
- The web console does not check parameter values that are outside the value range. If you enter an invalid parameter value, the web console redisplays the console page with the original value. Parameter value ranges are shown in the menu console and in the Catalyst 1900 Series Installation and Configuration Guide.
- Do not use the following settings for the console port when upgrading the switch through the XMODEM protocol: 9600 baud, 7 data bits, 2 stop bits, and Even parity. Use other settings or the console port default settings (9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, and no parity). [CSCdj87375]
- If you use bridge groups and Spanning-Tree Protocol (STP) is disabled on a bridge group, the switch does not forward the bridge protocol data units (BPDUs) received on any ports in the bridge group to other members of the bridge group. If you are running STP on the rest of your network, this might result in network loops if the switch connects to other switches. [CSCdk01665]
- If the problem occurs and you want to use bridge groups with STP disabled, you must disable STP on all bridge groups so that the switch forwards received BPDUs. Assign at least one port to all bridge groups, and then disable STP for each bridge group, using the Bridge Group Spanning Tree Configuration menu (or SNMP). You can then reassign the ports to whichever group you wish.
- RMON statistics gathering has the following maximum limits:
- 27 rows in these tables: etherStatsTable, historyControlTable, alarmTable, and eventTable.
- 20 history buckets per historyControlTable entry.
- If you are logging events, you can have 10 entries per event and the list is circular.
- The Catalyst 1900 switches now ship only with the RJ-45-to-DB-9 female DTE
(labeled PC) and RJ-45-to-DB-25 male DCE (labeled Modem) adapters. Disregard text in the Catalyst 1900 Series Installation and Configuration Guide that refer to the supplied RJ-45-to-DB-25 female DTE adapter. You can order this adapter from Cisco (order number CAB-500DTF).
- The RPS LED description in the Catalyst 1900 Series Installation and Configuration Guide should state that the RPS LED blinks green, not amber, when both the redundant power system (RPS) and the internal power supply are powered up.
- If you connect to the switch AUI port, you might notice that the fan on the switch slows down. This does not affect the operation of the switch.
- If you connect an autonegotiating 100BaseTX port of a Catalyst 1900 switch to a device that does not autonegotiate, there could be problems establishing a link. To work around this problem, configure the switch 100BaseTX port for either half or full duplex to match the configuration of the other device.
- After you select Auto-negotiate as the 100BaseTX port duplex mode on the web console Port Management page and click Apply, "Auto-negotiate" displays in the Actual field while the switch and the other device negotiate the duplex mode. Click the Port option on the web console action bar to display the final duplex state of the port. [CSCdk03911]
- Be sure that JavaScript is enabled. From Netscape Communicator 4.xx, select Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Enable JavaScript. JavaScript is enabled by default on Microsoft Internet Explorer.
- Be sure the web console page is updated whenever you visit the page. Set the caching of pages to Every time on Netscape Communicator or Once per session on Microsoft Internet Explorer.
- You can bookmark the switch IP address to easily retrieve the web console for later use.
- If you are using Netscape Communicator, choose the Communicator menu option, and select Bookmarks > Add Bookmark.
- If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer, choose the Favorites menu option, and select Add to Favorites.
- Do not use the right mouse-button to bookmark the switch IP address; doing so only saves the specific frame (image) of the web console page.
- If the switch is directly connected to a terminal or terminal emulator rather than to a modem connection, you must configure the switch to the same baud rate and character format as the terminal or emulator.
- If the switch is dialing out, the configured baud rate of the switch does not change. The Match Remote Baud rate option (auto baud) applies only when the switch is answering an incoming call and matches a rate less than or equal to the configured rate. When the call is over, the switch reverts to the last configured baud rate.
- Be sure that the port monitoring feature (used for diagnostics) is disabled during normal operation. Enabling the port monitoring feature can degrade the performance of the switch.
- Bridge group configuration is supported on the menu console, but not the web console.
- When you have bridge groups enabled, the web console displays information for bridge group 1 only.
- Do not connect a port that belongs to more than one bridge group to another port in any of those bridge groups; this will cause a network loop.
- When the switch initializes after a reset, the port experiences the complete Spanning-Tree Protocol (STP) transition, as specified by IEEE 802.1D, even if Port Fast mode is enabled. Once the transition is complete, the Port Fast mode setting is enforced. This process ensures that no temporary loop is formed after a reset and allows STP to safely discover the topology of the network.
- Switch configuration changes take effect immediately. However, the switch requires 30 seconds to write changed parameters to permanent storage. If you turn off the switch too soon, the change does not take effect the next time the system is restarted.
- While performing a firmware upgrade, the switch might not respond to commands for as long as 1 minute. This is normal and correct. If you interrupt the transfer by turning the switch off and on, the firmware could be corrupted. If this happens, follow the procedure described in "Using the Diagnostic Console" in the "Troubleshooting" chapter of the Catalyst 1900 Series Installation and Configuration Guide.
Use the Catalyst 1900 Series Installation and Configuration Guide with this document.
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