Installation guide

AT-2971 Solaris Sparc

Ignore_LenErr_InstX can be used as a workaround for the EDP frame

problem. EDP (Extreme Discovery Protocol) is a proprietary protocol that

is used by Extreme Gigabit switches to exchange information about

connected switches etc. These frames (at least the ones we have seen on

a Extreme Summit 1) have a length field indicating 316 bytes, but a real

frame length of 338 bytes. Such frames are counted by the MAC in the

InRangeLength error counter, which is one of the counters that is

summed up to form the counter "input errors". The counter even goes

up if the frames are received only in the MAC and dropped immediately.

These frames go to a constant MAC address of 00:e0:2b:00:00:00, which

is normally not received by the driver, except in promiscuous mode.

In the output of 'netstat -I skgeX', these errors are visible as "input

errors", going up two times per second in bigger installations (multiple

Extreme switches).

To avoid this, the parameter Ignore_LenErr_InstX has been introduced. If

it is set to "On" in the configuration file skge.conf, the InRangeLength

errors are not added to the "input errors".

Note that the frames are in fact incorrect and so they must be counted.

But if you are puzzled by the error counter going up, you can set this

parameter. To verify if you are really have this kind of problem, the

InRangeLength error counter can be viewed by using 'netstat -k skgeX'.

The error will show up under the label "inrangeerr".

DescrPollTime_InstX

Type: integer

Default value: 250

Valid values: 0 to 250

DescrPollTime_InstX can be used as a workaround for a possible hang-

up of the data transmission over one link due to a hardware timing

problem. Please do not change the default value without contacting

Allied Telesyn support for further advice!