Wired Intelligent Edge

Hi all,
in one of our sites, I'm having trouble getting an uplink working. Here's the situation:
The main switch is an aruba 2540.
One of the switches connected to it, is an Aruba 2930F 8-ports.
Both switches run on version 16.10.0016.

When this 8-ports switch is connected to the 2540, the ports go down (=no link, leds out). It's not a bpdu protection thing, because they don't go "admin down" and there is no bpdu protection on any of these uplink ports - I checked that 100 times or so, also in the logs this is not there.


Here's the port config of the 8-ports switch:

interface 8
   broadcast-limit 10
   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47
   untagged vlan 1
   loop-protect
   exit
​

Here's the port config of the 2540 switch:

interface 11
   name "lab"
   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47
   untagged vlan 1
   loop-protect
   exit
​​

When an unmanaged switch is connected in between the 2 Aruba's, all works like a charm.
None the other switches have this problem. I used a template - pushed by Airwave - to put the initial config on all switches in that site, so there should be no difference there - except for the vlans per port of course.

In the logs of the 2540, I just see port up/down, nothing more
In the logs of the 8-ports, I see a message for all vlans that they "Starved for a BPDU on port 8 from Desginated Bridge"

I tried the below already:
 - use another port (on both switches)
 - I asked our local guy to disconnect everything from the 8-ports switch and only connect the uplink
 - disabled/enabled spanning tree
 - removed spanning tree mode (rapid pvst)
 - rebooted switch
 - configured keep-alives on the uplink ports (tried on each side)
 - bpdu filter
 - broadcast limit
 - ...
Nothing of the above worked

I'm out of ideas to try to get this working. Does anybody of you have more inspiration for me on this, please?

Thanks!

Hi,

Without diving into the details you've shared, I will advise you to try without loop-protect. It is mentioned in the documentation as well, that loop-protect should not be used for uplinks. Normally it is used for downstream switches that do not run spanning tree.
Could you please disable loop-protect and share the results? 

Thank you!

------------------------------
Stanislav Naydenov
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Jan 17, 2022 06:49 AM
From: Bram D'hoore
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi all,
in one of our sites, I'm having trouble getting an uplink working. Here's the situation:
The main switch is an aruba 2540.
One of the switches connected to it, is an Aruba 2930F 8-ports.
Both switches run on version 16.10.0016.

When this 8-ports switch is connected to the 2540, the ports go down (=no link, leds out). It's not a bpdu protection thing, because they don't go "admin down" and there is no bpdu protection on any of these uplink ports - I checked that 100 times or so, also in the logs this is not there.


Here's the port config of the 8-ports switch:

interface 8   broadcast-limit 10   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47   untagged vlan 1   loop-protect   exit​

Here's the port config of the 2540 switch:

interface 11   name "lab"   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47   untagged vlan 1   loop-protect   exit​​

When an unmanaged switch is connected in between the 2 Aruba's, all works like a charm.
None the other switches have this problem. I used a template - pushed by Airwave - to put the initial config on all switches in that site, so there should be no difference there - except for the vlans per port of course.

In the logs of the 2540, I just see port up/down, nothing more
In the logs of the 8-ports, I see a message for all vlans that they "Starved for a BPDU on port 8 from Desginated Bridge"

I tried the below already:
 - use another port (on both switches)
 - I asked our local guy to disconnect everything from the 8-ports switch and only connect the uplink
 - disabled/enabled spanning tree
 - removed spanning tree mode (rapid pvst)
 - rebooted switch
 - configured keep-alives on the uplink ports (tried on each side)
 - bpdu filter
 - broadcast limit
 - ...
Nothing of the above worked

I'm out of ideas to try to get this working. Does anybody of you have more inspiration for me on this, please?

Thanks!

Original Message:
Sent: 1/17/2022 6:49:00 AM
From: bramdh
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi all,
in one of our sites, I'm having trouble getting an uplink working. Here's the situation:
The main switch is an aruba 2540.
One of the switches connected to it, is an Aruba 2930F 8-ports.
Both switches run on version 16.10.0016.

When this 8-ports switch is connected to the 2540, the ports go down (=no link, leds out). It's not a bpdu protection thing, because they don't go "admin down" and there is no bpdu protection on any of these uplink ports - I checked that 100 times or so, also in the logs this is not there.


Here's the port config of the 8-ports switch:

interface 8
   broadcast-limit 10
   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47
   untagged vlan 1
   loop-protect
   exit
​

Here's the port config of the 2540 switch:

interface 11
   name "lab"
   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47
   untagged vlan 1
   loop-protect
   exit
​​

When an unmanaged switch is connected in between the 2 Aruba's, all works like a charm.
None the other switches have this problem. I used a template - pushed by Airwave - to put the initial config on all switches in that site, so there should be no difference there - except for the vlans per port of course.

In the logs of the 2540, I just see port up/down, nothing more
In the logs of the 8-ports, I see a message for all vlans that they "Starved for a BPDU on port 8 from Desginated Bridge"

I tried the below already:
 - use another port (on both switches)
 - I asked our local guy to disconnect everything from the 8-ports switch and only connect the uplink
 - disabled/enabled spanning tree
 - removed spanning tree mode (rapid pvst)
 - rebooted switch
 - configured keep-alives on the uplink ports (tried on each side)
 - bpdu filter
 - broadcast limit
 - ...
Nothing of the above worked

I'm out of ideas to try to get this working. Does anybody of you have more inspiration for me on this, please?

Thanks!

Hi,
thanks for your replies!
I could only continue testing today as our local IT guy was working from home yesterday.
I tried both of your suggestions, however nothing helped. 
Also if I configure the spanning-tree point-to-point-mac as true, it doesn't show in the running config, so I guess that's the default value?

What we did today: swap the "non-working" switch with another one that was working fine => problem stayed in the problem location (=non working switch started working and the working switch stopped working).
So we swapped the uplink cables and the problem moved with the cable.
There were no errors at none of the 2 sides of the cable (checked both the main switch and the 8-ports switch) => we used another uplink cable anyway and that solved the problem...

I really don't understand why an unmanaged switch works and a managed switch doesn't work with that uplink cable

In any case, the problem looks to be solved. Let's hope it stays ok now *fingerscrossed*
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 17, 2022 04:47 PM
From: Davide Poletto
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi! in addition to what Stanislav already suggested you, set both uplink interfaces with the spanning tree option "point-to-point-mac" with "true" (spanning-tree <port-list|port-range|port-id> point-to-point-mac [ true | false | auto ]) reserved for switch-to-switch inter-links (true =  indicates a point-to-point link to a device such as a switch, bridge, or end-node).

Original Message:
Sent: 1/17/2022 6:49:00 AM
From: bramdh
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi all,
in one of our sites, I'm having trouble getting an uplink working. Here's the situation:
The main switch is an aruba 2540.
One of the switches connected to it, is an Aruba 2930F 8-ports.
Both switches run on version 16.10.0016.

When this 8-ports switch is connected to the 2540, the ports go down (=no link, leds out). It's not a bpdu protection thing, because they don't go "admin down" and there is no bpdu protection on any of these uplink ports - I checked that 100 times or so, also in the logs this is not there.


Here's the port config of the 8-ports switch:

interface 8   broadcast-limit 10   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47   untagged vlan 1   loop-protect   exit​

Here's the port config of the 2540 switch:

interface 11   name "lab"   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47   untagged vlan 1   loop-protect   exit​​

When an unmanaged switch is connected in between the 2 Aruba's, all works like a charm.
None the other switches have this problem. I used a template - pushed by Airwave - to put the initial config on all switches in that site, so there should be no difference there - except for the vlans per port of course.

In the logs of the 2540, I just see port up/down, nothing more
In the logs of the 8-ports, I see a message for all vlans that they "Starved for a BPDU on port 8 from Desginated Bridge"

I tried the below already:
 - use another port (on both switches)
 - I asked our local guy to disconnect everything from the 8-ports switch and only connect the uplink
 - disabled/enabled spanning tree
 - removed spanning tree mode (rapid pvst)
 - rebooted switch
 - configured keep-alives on the uplink ports (tried on each side)
 - bpdu filter
 - broadcast limit
 - ...
Nothing of the above worked

I'm out of ideas to try to get this working. Does anybody of you have more inspiration for me on this, please?

Thanks!

Hi, so - just to be clear - has the issue gone away by just swapping the cable used on for the uplink with another one?

------------------------------
Davide Poletto
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Jan 19, 2022 06:14 AM
From: Bram D'hoore
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi,
thanks for your replies!
I could only continue testing today as our local IT guy was working from home yesterday.
I tried both of your suggestions, however nothing helped. 
Also if I configure the spanning-tree point-to-point-mac as true, it doesn't show in the running config, so I guess that's the default value?

What we did today: swap the "non-working" switch with another one that was working fine => problem stayed in the problem location (=non working switch started working and the working switch stopped working).
So we swapped the uplink cables and the problem moved with the cable.
There were no errors at none of the 2 sides of the cable (checked both the main switch and the 8-ports switch) => we used another uplink cable anyway and that solved the problem...

I really don't understand why an unmanaged switch works and a managed switch doesn't work with that uplink cable

In any case, the problem looks to be solved. Let's hope it stays ok now *fingerscrossed*
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 17, 2022 04:47 PM
From: Davide Poletto
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi! in addition to what Stanislav already suggested you, set both uplink interfaces with the spanning tree option "point-to-point-mac" with "true" (spanning-tree <port-list|port-range|port-id> point-to-point-mac [ true | false | auto ]) reserved for switch-to-switch inter-links (true =  indicates a point-to-point link to a device such as a switch, bridge, or end-node).

Original Message:
Sent: 1/17/2022 6:49:00 AM
From: bramdh
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi all,
in one of our sites, I'm having trouble getting an uplink working. Here's the situation:
The main switch is an aruba 2540.
One of the switches connected to it, is an Aruba 2930F 8-ports.
Both switches run on version 16.10.0016.

When this 8-ports switch is connected to the 2540, the ports go down (=no link, leds out). It's not a bpdu protection thing, because they don't go "admin down" and there is no bpdu protection on any of these uplink ports - I checked that 100 times or so, also in the logs this is not there.


Here's the port config of the 8-ports switch:

interface 8   broadcast-limit 10   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47   untagged vlan 1   loop-protect   exit​

Here's the port config of the 2540 switch:

interface 11   name "lab"   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47   untagged vlan 1   loop-protect   exit​​

When an unmanaged switch is connected in between the 2 Aruba's, all works like a charm.
None the other switches have this problem. I used a template - pushed by Airwave - to put the initial config on all switches in that site, so there should be no difference there - except for the vlans per port of course.

In the logs of the 2540, I just see port up/down, nothing more
In the logs of the 8-ports, I see a message for all vlans that they "Starved for a BPDU on port 8 from Desginated Bridge"

I tried the below already:
 - use another port (on both switches)
 - I asked our local guy to disconnect everything from the 8-ports switch and only connect the uplink
 - disabled/enabled spanning tree
 - removed spanning tree mode (rapid pvst)
 - rebooted switch
 - configured keep-alives on the uplink ports (tried on each side)
 - bpdu filter
 - broadcast limit
 - ...
Nothing of the above worked

I'm out of ideas to try to get this working. Does anybody of you have more inspiration for me on this, please?

Thanks!

Hi,
that is correct.
Strange thing is that there were no CRC errors or any kind of other errors shown on the uplink ports.
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 21, 2022 09:44 AM
From: Davide Poletto
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi, so - just to be clear - has the issue gone away by just swapping the cable used on for the uplink with another one?

------------------------------
Davide Poletto

Original Message:
Sent: Jan 19, 2022 06:14 AM
From: Bram D'hoore
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi,
thanks for your replies!
I could only continue testing today as our local IT guy was working from home yesterday.
I tried both of your suggestions, however nothing helped. 
Also if I configure the spanning-tree point-to-point-mac as true, it doesn't show in the running config, so I guess that's the default value?

What we did today: swap the "non-working" switch with another one that was working fine => problem stayed in the problem location (=non working switch started working and the working switch stopped working).
So we swapped the uplink cables and the problem moved with the cable.
There were no errors at none of the 2 sides of the cable (checked both the main switch and the 8-ports switch) => we used another uplink cable anyway and that solved the problem...

I really don't understand why an unmanaged switch works and a managed switch doesn't work with that uplink cable

In any case, the problem looks to be solved. Let's hope it stays ok now *fingerscrossed*
Original Message:
Sent: Jan 17, 2022 04:47 PM
From: Davide Poletto
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi! in addition to what Stanislav already suggested you, set both uplink interfaces with the spanning tree option "point-to-point-mac" with "true" (spanning-tree <port-list|port-range|port-id> point-to-point-mac [ true | false | auto ]) reserved for switch-to-switch inter-links (true =  indicates a point-to-point link to a device such as a switch, bridge, or end-node).

Original Message:
Sent: 1/17/2022 6:49:00 AM
From: bramdh
Subject: uplink between 2 Aruba switches starves from bpdu

Hi all,
in one of our sites, I'm having trouble getting an uplink working. Here's the situation:
The main switch is an aruba 2540.
One of the switches connected to it, is an Aruba 2930F 8-ports.
Both switches run on version 16.10.0016.

When this 8-ports switch is connected to the 2540, the ports go down (=no link, leds out). It's not a bpdu protection thing, because they don't go "admin down" and there is no bpdu protection on any of these uplink ports - I checked that 100 times or so, also in the logs this is not there.


Here's the port config of the 8-ports switch:

interface 8   broadcast-limit 10   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47   untagged vlan 1   loop-protect   exit​

Here's the port config of the 2540 switch:

interface 11   name "lab"   tagged vlan 40,42-44,46-47   untagged vlan 1   loop-protect   exit​​

When an unmanaged switch is connected in between the 2 Aruba's, all works like a charm.
None the other switches have this problem. I used a template - pushed by Airwave - to put the initial config on all switches in that site, so there should be no difference there - except for the vlans per port of course.

In the logs of the 2540, I just see port up/down, nothing more
In the logs of the 8-ports, I see a message for all vlans that they "Starved for a BPDU on port 8 from Desginated Bridge"

I tried the below already:
 - use another port (on both switches)
 - I asked our local guy to disconnect everything from the 8-ports switch and only connect the uplink
 - disabled/enabled spanning tree
 - removed spanning tree mode (rapid pvst)
 - rebooted switch
 - configured keep-alives on the uplink ports (tried on each side)
 - bpdu filter
 - broadcast limit
 - ...
Nothing of the above worked

I'm out of ideas to try to get this working. Does anybody of you have more inspiration for me on this, please?

Thanks!