Michael McNamara

This post applies to the following models;

• Nortel Business Policy Switch 2000
• Nortel Ethernet Switch 300 Series
• Nortel Ethernet Switch 460
• Nortel Ethernet Switch 470
• Nortel Ethernet Switch 2500 Series
• Nortel Ethernet Switch 4500 Series
• Nortel Ethernet Route Switch 5500 Series

It is possible that the switch agent image, that is stored in NVRAM on the switch, can become corrupt for some reason or another. In this case the switch will not boot up properly and will require some special intervention.

Diagnostic Version X.X.X.X
Press Control-C to Enter Diag

Test ROM Config - PASSED
Test FANs - PASSED
Test Internal Loopback - PASSED
Test ASIC1 Registers - PASSED
Test ASIC2 Registers - PASSED
Test PHY Registers - PASSED
Test USB Registers - PASSED
Agent code verification fails!

>> Break Recognized - Wait...
Press 'a' to run Agent code
Press 'd' to download Agent code
Press 'e' to display errors
Press 'c' to clear log message
Press 'i' to initialize config flash
Press 'p' to run POST tests...

You can use the boot diagnostic code to download the agent code to the switch using the "d" option. While the switch is booting using "Ctrl-C" to break the boot sequence and select "d" from the menu.

WARNING: the TFTP server needs to be physically connected to the switch in question

Download Agent Code

Enter Port Number [ ]:
Enter Speed: 10, 100, 1000 [ ]:
Enter Local IP Address [ 0.0.0.0 ]: 10.10.10.15 (IP given to Switch)
Enter Server IP Address [ 0.0.0.0 ]: 10.10.10.1 (IP of local TFTP server)
Enter Subnet Mask [ 255.255.255.0 ]:
Enter Filename: boss_1234.img
Wait..
TFTP: Sending Open: .aaaaa.a
TFTP: Open
...............................................................
.............................................................
Len= 0x20795E= 2128222. (@1200000)
Agent Version= 5.0.0.0 ModelMask= 0x1C
Program y/N [ N ]: y (Press y)
Erasing - Wait 56 sec..
Programming - Wait 96 sec..

Once the download is complete you'll need to run the agent code by selecting "a"

Starting Agent Code..

Decompressing the image ...
Target Name: vxTarget
User: target
Attaching network interface idtip0... done.
Attaching network interface lo0... done.

Completing initialization...

At this point the switch should be booting up although it may take ~ 2 minutes for the switch to fully initialize the software and configuration.

Cheers!

This is a great document that outlines the Nortel Ethernet Switch product line and highlights the major feature sets.

Ethernet Switching Feature Matrix July 2007 Public Version.pdf

This is public information so hopefully I won't be getting any nasty email messages from anyone.

Cheers!

UPDATE: April 3, 2008

Here's a new version of the Ethernet Switching Feature Matrix dated November 2007.

If you've ever tried to connect to the web interface of a Nortel Ethernet Switch 460/470 or Ethernet Routing Switch 5510/5520/5530 you might have found that you need to provide a username.

In software release v3.7.x for the Nortel Ethernet Switch 460/470 you'll also find that you now need to provide a username when you telnet into the switch (in previous releases you were only prompted for a password, now you are prompted for a username and password).

Interestingly enough you cannot change the default usernames (at least I don't believe you can).

For the above mentioned switches there are only two levels of access, read-write and read-only.

The default username for the read-write user level is RW.
The default username for the read-only user level is RO.

Updated 1/16/08: I should have included the default passwords for those two accounts.
The default password for the read-write user level is "secure".
The default password for the read-only user level is "user".

Cheers!