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Cisco KnowledgeBase Cisco Switches Forcing A Cisco Catalyst Switch To Use 3rd Party SFP Modules
| Forcing A Cisco Catalyst Switch To Use 3rd Party SFP Modules |
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| Written by Administrator |
| Wednesday, 25 April 2012 22:44 |
A frequent problem with Cisco's new line of Catalyst switches is that they do not support 3rd party SFPs - or at least they seem they don't :) If you've just replaced your network switches and tried using any 3rd party SFPs to connect your network backbone, you'll quickly stumble across an error similar to the following: %PHY-4-UNSUPPORTED_TRANSCEIVER: Unsupported transceiver found in Gi1/0/0
Congratulations! The Catalyst switch has just disabled the GBIC port! This happens because Cisco Catalyst switches are configured by default not to work with non-Cisco SFPs.%GBIC_SECURITY_CRYPT-4-VN_DATA_CRC_ERROR: GBIC in port 65538 has bad crc When a SFP is inserted into a switch's GBIC port, the switch immediately reads a number of values from the SFP and if it doesn't like what it sees, it throws the above error message and disables the port. All SFP modules contain a number of recorded values in their EEPROM and include:
How To Force Your Cisco Switch to Use 3rd Party SFPsDespite the error displayed, which leaves no hope for a solution, keep smiling as you're about to be given one. There are two undocumented commands which can be used to force the Cisco Catalyst switch to enable the GBIC port and use the 3rd party SFP: 3750G-Stack(config)# service unsupported-transceiver
Warning: When Cisco determines that a fault or defect can be traced to the use of third-party transceivers installed by a customer or reseller, then, at Cisco's discretion, Cisco may withhold support under warranty or a Cisco support program. In the course of providing support for a Cisco networking product Cisco may require that the end user install Cisco transceivers if Cisco determines that removing third-party parts will assist Cisco in diagnosing the cause of a support issue. 3750G-Stack(config)# no errdisable detect cause gbic-invalid When entering the service unsupported-transceiver command, the switch will automatically throw a warning message as a last hope to prevent the usage of a 3rd party SFP. The no errdisable detect cause gbic-invalid command will help ensure the GBIC port is not disabled when inserting an invalid GIBC. Since the service unsupported-transceiver is undocumented, if you try searching for the command with the usual method (?), you won't find it: 3750G-Stack(config)# service ?
The same applies for the no errdisable detect cause gbic-invalid command. compress-config Compress the configuration file config TFTP load config files counters Control aging of interface counters dhcp Enable DHCP server and relay agent disable-ip-fast-frag Disable IP particle-based fast fragmentation exec-callback Enable exec callback exec-wait Delay EXEC startup on noisy lines finger Allow responses to finger requests hide-telnet-addresses Hide destination addresses in telnet command linenumber enable line number banner for each exec nagle Enable Nagle's congestion control algorithm old-slip-prompts Allow old scripts to operate with slip/ppp pad Enable PAD commands password-encryption Encrypt system passwords password-recovery Disable password recovery prompt Enable mode specific prompt pt-vty-logging Log significant VTY-Async events sequence-numbers Stamp logger messages with a sequence number slave-log Enable log capability of slave IPs tcp-keepalives-in Generate keepalives on idle incoming network connections tcp-keepalives-out Generate keepalives on idle outgoing network connections tcp-small-servers Enable small TCP servers (e.g., ECHO) telnet-zeroidle Set TCP window 0 when connection is idle timestamps Timestamp debug/log messages udp-small-servers Enable small UDP servers (e.g., ECHO) 3750G-Stack(config)# service We tried both service unsupported-transceiver & no errdisable detect cause gbic-invalid commands on 2960G, 3560G, 3750G, 4507R and 4507R-E Catalyst switches and all accepted the commands without a problem. In fact if the Catalyst switch is running IOS 12.2(25)SE and above, the undocumented commands are available. Should 3rd Party SFPs Be Used?There are mixed feelings about this. We certainly do not recommend using non-Cisco SFP's in production environments, however in a lab environment, its most probably a cheap way out. When using 3rd party GBICs, one must keep in mind that Cisco TAC will not provide any support for problems related to the SFPs as they are totally unsupported. Here is a small portion from the Cisco Catalyst 3750G Q&Athat refers to the usage of 3rd party SFP modules on the switch: Q. Do the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series Switches interoperate with SFPs from other vendors?
A. Yes, starting from 12.2(25)SE release, the user has the option via CLI to turn on the support for 3rd party SFPs. However, the Cisco TAC will not support such 3rd party SFPs. In the event of any link error involving such 3rd party SFPs the customer will have to replace 3rd party SFPs with Cisco SFPs before any troubleshooting can be done by TAC.
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| Last Updated on Thursday, 26 April 2012 11:49 |
