RE: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]

2002-01-18 Thread 416South

in my past experience it's always to let a device just keep running.  I was
under the impression and always looked at it and compared it to all other
electrical devices.  constant power is less damaging to any electrical
equiptment that continuous off/on.  Much like the life span of a light bulb.
As we know CAT 6509's are expensive light bulbs.

Chris

Puckette, Larry (TIFPC) wrote:
 
 Hello again group. I have another question to propose to you.
 But first an
 updated history of the issue at hand. We have a 6509 that
 serves as the core
 to a server farm that has both NT and Unix boxes on it. In the
 beginning
 there were infrequent link drops between servers and the switch
 that had no
 pattern to isolate a card or VLAN, etc...   and then frequency
 increased to
 be a constant problem. Sniffer information gave very little to
 hang our hat
 on, with 99% of it's findings being 2 messages. Too many
 retransmissions TCP
 and octets/s: current value 932,384. High Threshold=500,000. An
 example of
 the logging buffer on the switch's interesting messages were;
 IPPS6509 (enable) show logging buffer
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:44 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/23 left bridge
 port 8/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/22 joined bridge
 port 8/22
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 6/23 left bridge
 port 6/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:50 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/22 state in
 VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:01 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/23 joined bridge
 port 8/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:02 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/23 state in
 VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:06 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 6/23 joined bridge
 port 6/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:07 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 6/23 state in
 VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:28 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17 left bridge
 port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:29 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 7/16 left bridge
 port 7/16
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:35 %SYS-6-CFG_CHG:Global block changed by
 SNMP/216.141.33.71/
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17 joined bridge
 port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 7/16 joined bridge
 port 7/16
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 7/16 state in
 VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17 state in
 VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 03:44:27 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17 left bridge
 port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:44:43 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17 joined bridge
 port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:44:44 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17 state in
 VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 
 but these had no consistency over time as to what port or group
 of ports
 were experiencing this.
 
 some interesting 'show tech' information was;
 udp:
 0 incomplete headers
 0 bad data length fields
 2 bad checksums
 20839 socket overflows
 108568195 no such ports
 
 tcp: 111664 completely duplicate packets (6407 bytes) 
 29 keepalive timeouts
 
 Ok, if you're still with me... It was dictated that we REPLACE
 the switch by
 the customer but of course Cisco did not go for that and we did
 a scheduled
 reboot on the switch and all problems have cleared. Now the
 customer wants a
 bi-monthly reboot of this switch scheduled to prevent the
 problem from
 occurring. My questions are: Is there any technical reason that
 these
 scheduled reboots would be a bad idea? (politics dictate that
 logical
 reasons don't apply) Does anyone know of  a previously proven
 fix for this
 problem that has documentation that could be used in
 discussions of whether
 these scheduled reboots are necessary?
 
 Thank you all for any help,, in advance.
   
   
 Larry Puckette
 Network Analyst CCNA,MCP,LANCP
 Temple Inland
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 512/434-1838
 
 




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RE: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]

2002-01-18 Thread Rik Guyler

Larry, you haven't given us much but maybe you don't have much.  One thing
that may help ease the symptoms is to turn on portfast on the ports the
servers are connected.  When the port does flap, it won't take so long for
it to begin forwarding again.

You didn't mention what type of cards the servers are using.  Are these
100mbs or gig cards and who makes the cards?  There are known issues with
certain cards and certain drivers.  Are you using the latest drivers
downloaded from the vendor's website?  If these are gig cards, are they
fiber or copper?  If copper, could you have bad or old cable or maybe the
cables are routed over something causing EMI?  What about the OS on the Cat?
Is it the latest available (it's up to 7.x now)?  Is flow control turned on
or off?  You can set this separately for transmit and receive.  Did you try
moving the server(s) to a different port on the switch?  Did you get the
same results?  Is it possible to move ther server(s) to a different blade in
the Cat?  What about to a different switch?  Your logs indicate the port is
going up and down and Spanning Tree is doing its job and not much else.

You can see when troubleshooting issues on the list, we need more info.
This is just a small list to check but maybe it will be helpful.

Rik

-Original Message-
From: Puckette, Larry (TIFPC) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 10:10 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]


Hello again group. I have another question to propose to you. But first an
updated history of the issue at hand. We have a 6509 that serves as the core
to a server farm that has both NT and Unix boxes on it. In the beginning
there were infrequent link drops between servers and the switch that had no
pattern to isolate a card or VLAN, etc...   and then frequency increased to
be a constant problem. Sniffer information gave very little to hang our hat
on, with 99% of it's findings being 2 messages. Too many retransmissions TCP
and octets/s: current value 932,384. High Threshold=500,000. An example of
the logging buffer on the switch's interesting messages were;
IPPS6509 (enable) show logging buffer
2002 Jan 16 02:15:44 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/23 left bridge port 8/23
2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/22 joined bridge port 8/22
2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 6/23 left bridge port 6/23
2002 Jan 16 02:15:50 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/22 state in VLAN 172
changed to forwarding 2002 Jan 16 02:16:01 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/23
joined bridge port 8/23 2002 Jan 16 02:16:02 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/23
state in VLAN 172 changed to forwarding 2002 Jan 16 02:16:06
%PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 6/23 joined bridge port 6/23 2002 Jan 16 02:16:07
%SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 6/23 state in VLAN 172 changed to forwarding 2002
Jan 16 03:41:28 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17 left bridge port 8/17 2002 Jan
16 03:41:29 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 7/16 left bridge port 7/16 2002 Jan 16
03:41:35 %SYS-6-CFG_CHG:Global block changed by SNMP/216.141.33.71/ 2002 Jan
16 03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17 joined bridge port 8/17 2002 Jan 16
03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 7/16 joined bridge port 7/16 2002 Jan 16
03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 7/16 state in VLAN 172 changed to
forwarding 2002 Jan 16 03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17 state in VLAN
172 changed to forwarding 2002 Jan 16 03:44:27 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17
left bridge port 8/17 2002 Jan 16 03:44:43 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17
joined bridge port 8/17 2002 Jan 16 03:44:44 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17
state in VLAN 172 changed to forwarding

but these had no consistency over time as to what port or group of ports
were experiencing this.

some interesting 'show tech' information was;
udp:
0 incomplete headers
0 bad data length fields
2 bad checksums
20839 socket overflows
108568195 no such ports

tcp: 111664 completely duplicate packets (6407 bytes) 
29 keepalive timeouts

Ok, if you're still with me... It was dictated that we REPLACE the switch by
the customer but of course Cisco did not go for that and we did a scheduled
reboot on the switch and all problems have cleared. Now the customer wants a
bi-monthly reboot of this switch scheduled to prevent the problem from
occurring. My questions are: Is there any technical reason that these
scheduled reboots would be a bad idea? (politics dictate that logical
reasons don't apply) Does anyone know of  a previously proven fix for this
problem that has documentation that could be used in discussions of whether
these scheduled reboots are necessary?

Thank you all for any help,, in advance.


Larry Puckette
Network Analyst CCNA,MCP,LANCP
Temple Inland
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
512/434-1838




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http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7i=32472t=32449
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RE: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]

2002-01-18 Thread Puckette, Larry (TIFPC)

Agreed Rik. For an attempt at brevity, I left out some things. Some I
shouldn't have like;
These are all copper and set to 100 full
The drivers on the NICs were updated the last time we addressed this
problem, but the NICs are not all the same. Most are 3com, though not
standardized.
Portfast has now been turned on JUST ONE of these ports, mostly because of
politics, so that when the issue comes back we can use it as evidence of
helping or not.
The powers that be are software people and won't let us turn on flow
control.
The link drops were happening on all Ethernet modules but not all ports on
that module at the same time, but only some ports on different modules at
the same time.
This is in a large data center and in the wiring has been carefully routed
as well as EMI considered during electrical wiring installation.
The COS is now already in the 7.x range but not the latest, that will be
addressed soon.

I do appreciate you demeanor in pointing those out and the attempt to help.

Larry Puckette
Network Analyst CCNA,MCP,LANCP
Temple Inland
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
512/434-1838

 -Original Message-
From:   Rik Guyler [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent:   Friday, January 18, 2002 10:16 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:RE: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]

Larry, you haven't given us much but maybe you don't have much.  One thing
that may help ease the symptoms is to turn on portfast on the ports the
servers are connected.  When the port does flap, it won't take so long for
it to begin forwarding again.

You didn't mention what type of cards the servers are using.  Are these
100mbs or gig cards and who makes the cards?  There are known issues with
certain cards and certain drivers.  Are you using the latest drivers
downloaded from the vendor's website?  If these are gig cards, are they
fiber or copper?  If copper, could you have bad or old cable or maybe the
cables are routed over something causing EMI?  What about the OS on the Cat?
Is it the latest available (it's up to 7.x now)?  Is flow control turned on
or off?  You can set this separately for transmit and receive.  Did you try
moving the server(s) to a different port on the switch?  Did you get the
same results?  Is it possible to move ther server(s) to a different blade in
the Cat?  What about to a different switch?  Your logs indicate the port is
going up and down and Spanning Tree is doing its job and not much else.

You can see when troubleshooting issues on the list, we need more info.
This is just a small list to check but maybe it will be helpful.

Rik

-Original Message-
From: Puckette, Larry (TIFPC) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 10:10 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]


Hello again group. I have another question to propose to you. But first an
updated history of the issue at hand. We have a 6509 that serves as the core
to a server farm that has both NT and Unix boxes on it. In the beginning
there were infrequent link drops between servers and the switch that had no
pattern to isolate a card or VLAN, etc...   and then frequency increased to
be a constant problem. Sniffer information gave very little to hang our hat
on, with 99% of it's findings being 2 messages. Too many retransmissions TCP
and octets/s: current value 932,384. High Threshold=500,000. An example of
the logging buffer on the switch's interesting messages were;
IPPS6509 (enable) show logging buffer
2002 Jan 16 02:15:44 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/23 left bridge port 8/23
2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/22 joined bridge port 8/22
2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 6/23 left bridge port 6/23
2002 Jan 16 02:15:50 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/22 state in VLAN 172
changed to forwarding 2002 Jan 16 02:16:01 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/23
joined bridge port 8/23 2002 Jan 16 02:16:02 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/23
state in VLAN 172 changed to forwarding 2002 Jan 16 02:16:06
%PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 6/23 joined bridge port 6/23 2002 Jan 16 02:16:07
%SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 6/23 state in VLAN 172 changed to forwarding 2002
Jan 16 03:41:28 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17 left bridge port 8/17 2002 Jan
16 03:41:29 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 7/16 left bridge port 7/16 2002 Jan 16
03:41:35 %SYS-6-CFG_CHG:Global block changed by SNMP/216.141.33.71/ 2002 Jan
16 03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17 joined bridge port 8/17 2002 Jan 16
03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 7/16 joined bridge port 7/16 2002 Jan 16
03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 7/16 state in VLAN 172 changed to
forwarding 2002 Jan 16 03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17 state in VLAN
172 changed to forwarding 2002 Jan 16 03:44:27 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17
left bridge port 8/17 2002 Jan 16 03:44:43 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17
joined bridge port 8/17 2002 Jan 16 03:44:44 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17
state in VLAN 172 changed to forwarding

but these had no consistency over time as to what port or group of ports
were

RE: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]

2002-01-18 Thread Daniel Cotts

From Cisco LAN Switching by Clark and Hamilton pages 262-3, 271-3 see the
discussion of PortFast and disabling Port Aggregation Protocol. On CCO look
for a command set port host that should change several parameters in one
shot. The set port host command sets channel mode to off, enables
spanning-tree portfast, and sets trunk mode to off. Only an end station can
accept this configuration.
That should eliminate your logging messages. It should speed reconnection in
the case of a disconnect. You have already indicated that speed and duplex
are hard coded on the switch and (I hope) the NIC as well. I cannot comment
on the reason for the initial disconnect.
Sorry about the politics - 

 -Original Message-
 From: Puckette, Larry (TIFPC) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
 Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 9:10 AM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]
 
 
 Hello again group. I have another question to propose to you. 
 But first an
 updated history of the issue at hand. We have a 6509 that 
 serves as the core
 to a server farm that has both NT and Unix boxes on it. In 
 the beginning
 there were infrequent link drops between servers and the 
 switch that had no
 pattern to isolate a card or VLAN, etc...   and then 
 frequency increased to
 be a constant problem. Sniffer information gave very little 
 to hang our hat
 on, with 99% of it's findings being 2 messages. Too many 
 retransmissions TCP
 and octets/s: current value 932,384. High Threshold=500,000. 
 An example of
 the logging buffer on the switch's interesting messages were;
 IPPS6509 (enable) show logging buffer
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:44 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/23 left 
 bridge port 8/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/22 joined 
 bridge port 8/22
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 6/23 left 
 bridge port 6/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:50 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/22 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:01 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/23 joined 
 bridge port 8/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:02 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/23 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:06 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 6/23 joined 
 bridge port 6/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:07 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 6/23 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:28 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17 left 
 bridge port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:29 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 7/16 left 
 bridge port 7/16
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:35 %SYS-6-CFG_CHG:Global block changed by
 SNMP/216.141.33.71/
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17 joined 
 bridge port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 7/16 joined 
 bridge port 7/16
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 7/16 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 03:44:27 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17 left 
 bridge port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:44:43 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17 joined 
 bridge port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:44:44 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 
 but these had no consistency over time as to what port or 
 group of ports
 were experiencing this.
 
 some interesting 'show tech' information was;
 udp:
 0 incomplete headers
 0 bad data length fields
 2 bad checksums
 20839 socket overflows
 108568195 no such ports
 
 tcp: 111664 completely duplicate packets (6407 bytes) 
 29 keepalive timeouts
 
 Ok, if you're still with me... It was dictated that we 
 REPLACE the switch by
 the customer but of course Cisco did not go for that and we 
 did a scheduled
 reboot on the switch and all problems have cleared. Now the 
 customer wants a
 bi-monthly reboot of this switch scheduled to prevent the problem from
 occurring. My questions are: Is there any technical reason that these
 scheduled reboots would be a bad idea? (politics dictate that logical
 reasons don't apply) Does anyone know of  a previously proven 
 fix for this
 problem that has documentation that could be used in 
 discussions of whether
 these scheduled reboots are necessary?
 
 Thank you all for any help,, in advance.
   
   
 Larry Puckette
 Network Analyst CCNA,MCP,LANCP
 Temple Inland
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 512/434-1838




Message Posted at:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7i=32529t=32449
--
FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html
Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]



RE: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]

2002-01-18 Thread Bill Carter

You should also look at set option debounce and set port debounce.  These
commands were added to deal with NIC vendors (3Com) who were staying from
the IEEE Ethernet standards.  Basically electrical signals from the NIC
would go link up/down/up/down and the switch would see it as the card going
up and down (silly Cisco!!).  Debounce tweaks the tolerances for these NICs
so Cisco will once again play nice with 3Com.

As an additional note to my bashing 3Com...2 customers recently purchased
hundreds of new PC's (Manufacture name withheld) which came with built in
3Com NICs.  Not a single PC will auto-negotiate properly.  The cards all go
to 100-Half and the Switch 100-Full.  When the switch is forced to 100-Full
the PC's still go 100-Half.  One customer was replacing Compaqs with Intel
cards that auto-negotiated correctly 95% of the time.

Will 3Com go bankrupt within 12 months?

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
Daniel Cotts
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 3:08 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]


From Cisco LAN Switching by Clark and Hamilton pages 262-3, 271-3 see the
discussion of PortFast and disabling Port Aggregation Protocol. On CCO look
for a command set port host that should change several parameters in one
shot. The set port host command sets channel mode to off, enables
spanning-tree portfast, and sets trunk mode to off. Only an end station can
accept this configuration.
That should eliminate your logging messages. It should speed reconnection in
the case of a disconnect. You have already indicated that speed and duplex
are hard coded on the switch and (I hope) the NIC as well. I cannot comment
on the reason for the initial disconnect.
Sorry about the politics -

 -Original Message-
 From: Puckette, Larry (TIFPC) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
 Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 9:10 AM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: 6509 roaming disconnects part2 [7:32449]


 Hello again group. I have another question to propose to you.
 But first an
 updated history of the issue at hand. We have a 6509 that
 serves as the core
 to a server farm that has both NT and Unix boxes on it. In
 the beginning
 there were infrequent link drops between servers and the
 switch that had no
 pattern to isolate a card or VLAN, etc...   and then
 frequency increased to
 be a constant problem. Sniffer information gave very little
 to hang our hat
 on, with 99% of it's findings being 2 messages. Too many
 retransmissions TCP
 and octets/s: current value 932,384. High Threshold=500,000.
 An example of
 the logging buffer on the switch's interesting messages were;
 IPPS6509 (enable) show logging buffer
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:44 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/23 left
 bridge port 8/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/22 joined
 bridge port 8/22
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:49 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 6/23 left
 bridge port 6/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:15:50 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/22 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:01 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/23 joined
 bridge port 8/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:02 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/23 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:06 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 6/23 joined
 bridge port 6/23
 2002 Jan 16 02:16:07 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 6/23 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:28 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17 left
 bridge port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:29 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 7/16 left
 bridge port 7/16
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:35 %SYS-6-CFG_CHG:Global block changed by
 SNMP/216.141.33.71/
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17 joined
 bridge port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:47 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 7/16 joined
 bridge port 7/16
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 7/16 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 03:41:48 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding
 2002 Jan 16 03:44:27 %PAGP-5-PORTFROMSTP:Port 8/17 left
 bridge port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:44:43 %PAGP-5-PORTTOSTP:Port 8/17 joined
 bridge port 8/17
 2002 Jan 16 03:44:44 %SPANTREE-6-PORTFWD: Port 8/17 state in VLAN 172
 changed to forwarding

 but these had no consistency over time as to what port or
 group of ports
 were experiencing this.

 some interesting 'show tech' information was;
 udp:
 0 incomplete headers
 0 bad data length fields
 2 bad checksums
 20839 socket overflows
 108568195 no such ports

 tcp: 111664 completely duplicate packets (6407 bytes)
 29 keepalive timeouts

 Ok, if you're still with me... It was dictated that we
 REPLACE the switch by
 the customer but of course Cisco did not go for that and we
 did a scheduled
 reboot on the switch and all problems have cleared. Now the
 customer wants a
 bi-monthly reboot of this switch scheduled to prevent the problem from
 occurring. My questions are: Is there any technical reason that these
 scheduled reboots would