It recently came to my attention that my company may plan to disable all CDP in our network. The current vibe is that they see it as a security risk. My intent is to research this and provide a paper arguing for the use of CDP. The purpose for my post is to see if my opinions of the benefits of CDP are realistic (sanity check) and to see how others view CDP, weighing it's usefulness vs. any possible risk.
I have already begun researching any security releases on CCO in regards to CDP. Initial scan shows a 'vulnerability' notice that Cisco most recently updated on Feb 12, 2003. This information can be found at this link: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/tech/tk648/tk362/technologies_tech_note09 186a0080093ef0.shtml Looking at CDP from a troubleshooting tool perspective, I am all for it. I've personally been saved unknown hours tracing down a problem because CDP allowed me to bounce around the network quickly. Our network is not small. And as most people would agree, documentation is never what we all would like it to be. Therefore, I find that CDP's ability to display the network below Layer 3 is appreciated. Also from a tool perspective, I know CiscoWorks has tools to offer that utilize CDP. And I've seen software from other companies that does as well. Think Layer 2 traceroute capability. Looking at CDP from a multi-vendor platform perspective, I realize that it's often beneficial to turn off CDP on interfaces that connect to non-Cisco devices. No point in bothering a non-Cisco device with traffic that it can't process. But note, this is not turning off CDP globally per router/switch, but rather, disabling on an as-needed basis per interface. I'd like to hear other views and I'd appreciate feedback and opinions about this. Thanks, -chris Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=65251&t=65251 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
