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    Device Information: Investigating The CAM

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    Кирилл Гулякевич
    The document discusses investigating the contents and properties of a switch's CAM (Content Addressable Memory) table. The CAM table stores information about devices connected to each port, including MAC addresses, ports, and VLANs. It can be displayed using the "show mac address-table" command to view the entries currently learned by the switch. The CAM aging time can also be configured and viewed, which determines how long entries stay in the table before being removed if not refreshed.

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    Device Information: Investigating The CAM

    Uploaded by

    Кирилл Гулякевич
    118 views4 pages
    The document discusses investigating the contents and properties of a switch's CAM (Content Addressable Memory) table. The CAM table stores information about devices connected to each port, including MAC addresses, ports, and VLANs. It can be displayed using the "show mac address-table" command to view the entries currently learned by the switch. The CAM aging time can also be configured and viewed, which determines how long entries stay in the table before being removed if not refreshed.

    Original Description:

    Investigating the CAM

    Original Title

    discovery 1

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    The document discusses investigating the contents and properties of a switch's CAM (Content Addressable Memory) table. The CAM table stores information about devices connected to each port, including MAC addresses, ports, and VLANs. It can be displayed using the "show mac address-table" command to view the entries currently learned by the switch. The CAM aging time can also be configured and viewed, which determines how long entries stay in the table before being removed if not refreshed.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    118 views4 pages

    Device Information: Investigating The CAM

    Uploaded by

    Кирилл Гулякевич
    The document discusses investigating the contents and properties of a switch's CAM (Content Addressable Memory) table. The CAM table stores information about devices connected to each port, including MAC addresses, ports, and VLANs. It can be displayed using the "show mac address-table" command to view the entries currently learned by the switch. The CAM aging time can also be configured and viewed, which determines how long entries stay in the table before being removed if not refreshed.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    Through this discovery, you will investigate the contents and properties of the CAM table of a switch.

    You can
    display the CAM table to verify the information that the switch has learned. The table will also tell you out of
    which port the address was learned, along with the VLAN information.

    Job AIDS
    Note
    If you shut down an interface on a real router or switch, the connected device will see it as "down/down." Due
    to virtualization specifics, IOL behavior is slightly different. If you shut down an interface on a router or switch,
    the connected device will see it as "up/up." In IOL, the status of an interface can only be "up/up" or
    "administratively down/down.

    Device Information
    Device Interface on the
    Device Device IP Neighbor
    Interface Neighbor

    PC1 10.1.1.1 Eth0/0 Switch1 Eth0/0

    PC2 10.1.1.2 Eth0/0 Switch1 Eth0/1

    PC3 10.1.1.3 Eth0/0 Switch1 Eth0/2

    Not Not
    Switch1 Eth1/1 Not applicable
    applicable applicable

    Investigating the CAM

    Through this discovery, you will investigate the contents and properties of the CAM table of a switch. You can
    display the CAM table to verify the information that the switch has learned. The table will also tell you out of
    which port the address was learned, along with the VLAN information.

    Step 1

    From PC1, generate traffic to all devices in the subnet.

    Log on to PC1 and issue a broadcast ping to 10.1.1.255. Configure a repeat count of 10 and a datagram size
    of 1500.
    Answer
    Pinging the broadcast address of 10.1.1.255 will ping all hosts in the 10.1.1.0/24 subnet. You are doing this
    action in order for Switch1 to learn all the MAC addresses of connected hosts.

    When issuing a broadcast ping, you will need to make sure that you are in privileged mode. IP broadcast
    pinging is disallowed from user exec mode.

    Note that in the IOL environment, PCs are simulated using routers.

    PC1>
    PC1> enable
    PC1# ping
    Protocol [ip]:
    Target IP address: 10.1.1.255
    Repeat count [5]: 10
    Datagram size [100]: 1500
    Timeout in seconds [2]:
    Extended commands [n]:
    Sweep range of sizes [n]:
    Type escape sequence to abort.
    Sending 10000, 1500-byte ICMP Echos to 10.1.1.255,
    timeout is 2 seconds:

    Reply to request 0 from 10.1.1.3, 1 ms


    Reply to request 0 from 10.1.1.4, 1 ms
    Reply to request 0 from 10.1.1.5, 1 ms
    <... output omitted ...>

    Step 2

    Access Switch1 and investigate its CAM table.

    Use the show mac address-table command.


    Answer
    Notice that you see one MAC address per port for Ethernet 0/1, 0/2, and 0/3. These interfaces are the ports
    that PC1, PC2, and PC3 connect to, respectively.

    Switch1# show mac address-table


    Mac Address Table
    -------------------------------------------

    Vlan Mac Address Type Ports


    ---- ----------- -------- -----
    1 aabb.cc00.2000 DYNAMIC Et0/1
    1 aabb.cc00.2100 DYNAMIC Et0/2
    1 aabb.cc00.2200 DYNAMIC Et0/3
    1 aabb.cc00.2400 DYNAMIC Et1/1
    1 aabb.cc00.2500 DYNAMIC Et1/1
    Total Mac Addresses for this criterion: 5

    So, if PC1 sends a packet to PC2, Switch1 will receive it on Ethernet 0/1. Switch1 will investigate the frame and
    see that the destination MAC address is that of PC2. Switch1 will now perform a lookup and find the MAC
    address of PC2 mapped to Ethernet 0/2. For the final step, Switch1 will forward the message.
    Step 3

    On Switch1, filter out MAC addresses that the switch learned through Ethernet 1/1.

    Use the command show mac address-table interface Ethernet 1/1 .

    Switches that connect to many devices can have very long CAM tables. In those cases, you can help yourself
    with filtering.
    Answer
    You can see that Switch1 sees two MAC addresses through port Ethernet 1/1:

    Switch1# show mac address-table interface ethernet


    1/1
    Mac Address Table
    -------------------------------------------

    Vlan Mac Address Type Ports


    ---- ----------- -------- -----
    1 aabb.cc00.2400 DYNAMIC Et1/1
    1 aabb.cc00.2500 DYNAMIC Et1/1

    You can add the address keyword to specify a single MAC address. If you want to show just MAC addresses
    that belong to devices in a certain VLAN, add the vlan keyword.
    Step 4

    How is it possible for Switch1 to see two MAC addresses through port Eth1/1?
    Answer
    Switch1 sees two MAC addresses through Ethernet 1/1 because this port connects to another switch.
    Step 5

    Issue the show cdp neighbor command on Switch1.


    Answer
    You can verify that Switch1 connects to another switch by investigating its Cisco Discovery Protocol neighbors.
    Use the show cdp neighbor command. Cisco Discovery Protocol is used to share information about directly
    connected Cisco equipment.

    You can see that indeed Switch1 connects to another switch, Switch2:

    Switch1# show cdp neighbors


    Capability Codes: R - Router, T - Trans Bridge, B -
    Source Route Bridge
    S - Switch, H - Host, I - IGMP, r -
    Repeater, P - Phone,
    D - Remote, C - CVTA, M - Two-port
    Mac Relay

    Device ID Local Intrfce Holdtme


    Capability Platform Port ID
    Switch2 Eth 1/1 128 R
    S Linux Uni Eth 1/1

    CAM Aging Time


    CAM tables can accommodate a lot of entries for frame forwarding. However, there is not enough space for
    every address in a large network. For that reason, addresses that have not been heard from for a time (stale
    entries) are aged-out. That time is also called aging time.

    Step 6

    Investigate aging time using the show mac address-table aging-time command.
    Answer
    By default, the aging time is 300 seconds:

    Switch1# show mac address-table aging-time


    Global Aging Time: 300
    Vlan Aging Time
    ---- ----------
    The default aging time for ARP table entries is 4 hours. In networks where you have a host that does not
    generate a lot of traffic for long periods of time, you can have your CAM table entries time out every 5 minutes.
    In these rare cases, you might have to increase the CAM aging time to bring down the amount of flooding.

    CAM table entries cannot be summarized the way that they are in IP routing. Having 1000 devices in the
    network means 1000 addresses per CAM table per switch. When the CAM table is full, the switch acts as a hub
    by forwarding all new frames, like broadcasts. The solution is to implement routing into the network to limit
    MAC flooding.
    Step 7

    Change the CAM aging time on Switch1 to 600 seconds.

    The default setting of the CAM aging time can be changed using the following command: mac address-table
    aging-time seconds . Change the aging time on Switch1 to 600 seconds.
    Answer

    Switch1(config)# mac address-table aging-time 600

    Step 8

    Now, after you have changed the aging time, verify the change using the command show mac address-table
    aging-time :
    Answer

    Switch1# show mac address-table aging-time


    Global Aging Time: 600
    Vlan Aging Time
    ---- ----------

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