In December we set up a frame connection between Palo Alto and San
Jose. We're using a Cisco 2514 at the Palo Alto site and a PM2ER-30 at
the San Jose site. Everything has been running great since we installed
it (December of '98).
On Thursday evening we lost connectivity across the frame (we haven't
altered any configuration settings on the routers since we set up the
frame link in December). We can see traffic coming from Palo Alto to
San Jose (running a trace on the Livingston shows that data is making it
to San Jose), but the traffic sent from San Jose is never reaching Palo
Alto (running a trace shows that the livingston is routing the packets
-- the outgoing counters also increment when we try to send data to Palo
Alto -- but the error counters do not increment).
Pacific Bell is convinced it's a problem with our equipment. Here's
what they say is happening; the Livingston in San Jose is routing
traffic out to the frame cloud, but their switch is discarding the
packets and the traffic is never being routed across the frame cloud.
They say the packets aren't being framed correctly.
Odd that their switch should suddenly start discarding all the traffic
from the Livingston, I decided to configure an IRX-111 I had available
and installed it in place of the PM2E. Still their switch discards the
traffic. I tried replacing the CSU/DSU and all of the cables, but to no
avail. For what it's worth, running a debug 0x51 shows that the
Livingston is receiving the Annex-d polling information and is correctly
identifying the dlci number.
Convinced now that the problem was on the PacBell end, I decided to take
the IRX to Palo Alto and stick it in place of the Cisco. After I did
that we no longer saw any traffic making to to San Jose through the
frame cloud. Thinking that it was still the switch in San Jose that was
discarding "Livingston" packets, we called PacBell.
Here's where my theory of it being their equipment gets blown all to
hell. According to PacBell, the San Jose end is sending data out to the
frame cloud but the data is being discarded at the first switch it
hits. The data that is being sent out to the frame cloud on the Palo
Alto end (which now has an IRX on it instead of a Cisco 2514) is also
being discarded at the first switch that it hits (these are physically
two different switches). When I put the Cisco back in it's place, the
data makes it from Palo Alto to San Jose without any problems (but since
San Jose is running with a PM2ER, it can't get any data back to Palo
Alto).
So the question; why in the hell are the PacBell switches discarding the
Livingston frame packets but passing the Cisco frame packets? I've run
out of things to try and I guess I'm going to have to see if I can
borrow a Cisco to put in San Jose. If that works, I quite frankly
haven't a clue as to what the problem is. Anybody have any pointers on
what I should try next with the Livingstons?
Thanks much!
Mike
msherman@svwh.net
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