Product and Software: This article applies to all Aruba M3 and 3000 Series controllers and ArubaOS 3.x.
The following command displays data path port information in the controller. This output shows details about the activity/functioning/configuration of the port with respect to data path and for the ports that are available in the respective controller.
<Aruba>#show datapath port table
In A800/2400/200 products, this command works correctly and no issues are found in the output. However when this command is executed in any M3/3x00 controller, default port information for 104 ports is displayed. The problem is that an Aruba 3x00 controller has only four ports. Why is information displayed for 100 extra ports? The same thing happens for an M3 that might not have several line cards, but still information is displayed for 104 ports that are not available in the controller.
This issue occurs because the image for the Aruba 3200 family of controllers and the M3 are the same and it is designed so that the correct data path port transaction specific to this kind of controller cannot be recorded.
The port table is statically allocated in the SOS module. The image for the 3200/3400/3600/M3 products are the same. As such, the table is allocated to support as many ports as the M3 does.
To get module entry information and the status of the ports, issue the "show port status" command. The port table of the controller is statically allocated in the SOS module and this module provides common port information for the M3 and 3x00 controllers. Hence in a data path port table, it gives the output for the ports that are not present in the controller at all.
The SOS module was designed to accommodate the maximum port information, which is 24+1 port in each line card. Altogether that makes 104 ports and hence by default it displays output for all 104 ports with reference to the SOS table entry.
When this issue happens, people generally assume that a bug is causing it, but this mechanism actually is working as it is designed to in the image file.