Dell PowerConnect 5424/5448

PowerConnect 5424/5448 Release Notes

Date: April 2011 System Firmware Version 2.0.0.46

Information in this document is subject to change without notice. 2011 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc is strictly forbidden. Trademarks used in this text: Dell, the DELL logo and PowerConnect are trademarks of Dell Computer Corporation; Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entity claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell Computer Corporation disclaims any proprietary interest in trademarks and trade names other than its own. All rights reserved. This document may not, in whole or in part, be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without the prior written consent of Dell. Dell reserves the right to make changes without further notices to any products or specifications referred to herein to improve reliability, functionality or design. Reproduction, adaptation or translation without prior written permission is prohibited, except as allowed under the copyright laws.

Table of Contents
Introduction GLOBAL SUPPORT Firmware Specifications Added functionality in this phase Issues resolved Known Restrictions and Limitations 1 1 1 2 2 2

SNTP Day Light Saving time settings.........................................................................................................................3 Rate Limiting deviation...............................................................................................................................................3 Port monitor (mirroring) looses plackets when simultaneously transmission from three ports...................................3 MSTP doesnt work on port in mode general and Admit only tagged frames.............................................................3 Voice Vlan Won't activate automatically on port which is in up state...................................................................................................................3 Help Files....................................................................................................................................................................3

Documentation updates

Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................4

Corrections and Additions to the System Information Guide4 Corrections and Additions to the User Guide and CLI Reference Guide Corrections and Additions to the CLI Reference Guide

4 4

password....................................................................................................................................................................4 rate-limit......................................................................................................................................................................4

Corrections and Additions to the User Guide

Username Password..................................................................................................................................................4

System Usage Notes

Ports are not removed automatically from a MAC Multicast group by removing them from the VLAN. ....................5 Only management stations with super community access can set rndAlarmEnabling. .............................................5 Legacy........................................................................................................................................................................5 Forward/Backward compatibility.................................................................................................................................5 System mode..............................................................................................................................................................5 Login Banner..............................................................................................................................................................5 i

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802.1x.........................................................................................................................................................................5 Rate Limit....................................................................................................................................................................5

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PowerConnect 5424/5448 Release Notes

Introduction
This document provides specific information for the Dell PowerConnect 5424/5448 Switch system, firmware version 2.0.0.46.
It is recommended that this release note be thoroughly reviewed prior to installing or upgrading of this product.

GLOBAL SUPPORT
By Web: http://support.dell.com/ For information regarding the latest available firmware, recent release notes revisions, or if requiring additional assistance, please visit the http://www.dell.com Support Web Site.

Firmware Specifications
Firmware Version Details
Boot PROM Name powerconnect_54xx_boot-2000.rfb Firmware Image Name kenan-20046.ros Version No. 2.0.0.0 Version No. 2.0.0.46 Release Date Dec, 2008 Release Date April, 2011

The firmware image version should be 2.0.0.46 on the PowerConnect 5424/5448. The boot prom image should be 2.0.0.0 Refer to the PowerConnect 54XX Systems Users Guide for instructions on loading the boot PROM software and updating the firmware image.

Version Numbering Convention

Version number 5424/5448 2 0 0 46 Description

Four part version number Denotes the build number. Denotes an ad hoc release of the product software. Denotes a scheduled maintenance release of the product software. Denotes a major version number.

Supported Firmware Functionality

For more details regarding the functionalities listed, please refer to the PowerConnect 54XX Systems Users Guide.

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PowerConnect 5424/5448 Release Notes

Added functionality in this phase
The following new features were added to the 2.0.0.43 release of the PowerConnect 5424/5448: ISCSI Well-known ports The following 4 ISCSI well-known ports were added to the list of the pre-defined TCP ports (default): {9876, 20002, 20003, 25555} From this version on the Default ISCSI well-known ports in the device: {860, 3260, 9876, 20002, 20003, 25555} The new predefined TCP ports are added to device configuration via CLI commands when device reboots from factory default (empty startup configuration). This is the same behavior as previous version with well known ports 860 and 3260. Therefore, when upgrading from previous software version that did not support ports 9876, 20002, 20003 and 25555 as well known ports, user will have to first erase existing startup configuration, before rebooting to new software version. After this operation user can add additional configuration and save to startup config. If user upgrades version but does not wish to erase existing configuration he will need to add these ports manually to device configuration.

Issues resolved
The following is a list of issues resolved between 2.0.0.43 and 2.0.0.46 firmware release. Description The command "no password minlength" does not disable the minimum password length requirement LLDP port description is "Ethernet interface" on all ports In the GUI PVID field is labeled as "Customer VLAN" and not PVID Device crashes when requesting an OID using branches of OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.89.83 ARP timeout is set to 3600 seconds instead of 60,000 seconds If IGMP snooping is enabled an IGMP query sent on a VLAN with an IP address causes the device to freeze, User Impact Resolution User can't set a password which is less than Issue was fixed the minimal password length [8 Characters] Issue was fixed the The user can't differentiate between specific returned port description ports on the device using the LLDP port includes reference to port description type, and logical index Issue was fixed, field name None was changed to PVID Device crash on SNMP walk Issue was fixed ARP timeout is shorter than expected Device will not forward traffic or respond to CLI or other management interfaces Issues was fixed, ARP timeout is set to 60,000 sec. Issue was fixed

Known Restrictions and Limitations

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Title Description Setting of DST to 1 Jan from time 00:00 till Time-zone has no effect on show clock presentation (summer time correction has no effect) for the period of these few ours only (Time-zone hours). How to avoid the situation: Actually this is only Lab failure. In practice it's not rational to set DST start to 1st January. So to avoid this situation dont set DST to Jan. How to rectify the situation: If happens it would be fixed (corrected) automatically within few hours. The actual rate limit is differing from configured one especially for jumbo frames. The deviation can reach 25% for big frames at low rates configuration. How to avoid the situation: Dont use low rates. On any other rates the deviation is negligible. How to rectify the situation: None. The packet duplication for the Analyzer port occurs at Pre-Egress Engine. Now, if a packet is to be duplicated and another packet is being duplicated at the same time, the device drops the second packet. How to avoid the situation: The situation is rare in real networks because of the randomness. How to rectify the situation: None. MSTP doesnt work on port in mode general and configured to Admit only tagged frames. This configuration is rare to the network. Currently we recommend disabling the STP on ports which are in General mode and configured to Admit only tagged frames sat. The auto assignment mechanism for Voice Vlan works on base of FDB MAC table learning. To enable feature work correctly you need first to configure the feature and only after that add the VoIP equipment. Work Around: To clean FDB table and cause the device to relearn MAC addresses. The following issues were discovered in Help Files: 1. MED Network Policy includes a parameter which is not supported: Video Signaling 2. File Download from Server the parameter Link Local Interface allows choice between ISATAP and None; and not ISATAP and VLAN 1 as documented 3. Network Security ACL Binding the page does not include the description of the 2 parameters that are included in this web screen (Select an ACL and Bind ACL to an interface) 4. Dynamic Address Table missing description of the parameter Clear Table 5. VLAN Port Settings missing description of the parameter Customer VLAN 6. RMON Statistics Group the parameter Dropped Packets is referenced as Drop Events 7. RMON History Table missing description of the parameters History Entry No. and Owner

SNTP Day Light Saving time settings

Rate Limiting deviation

Port monitor (mirroring) looses plackets when simultaneously transmission from three ports.

MSTP doesnt work on port in mode general and Admit only tagged frames Voice Vlan Won't activate automatically on port which is in up state

Help Files

Documentation updates

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PowerConnect 5424/5448 Release Notes

Introduction
This document lists the changes from the PowerConnect 5424/5448 Systems Users Guide. The modifications are due to instances discovered in various user environments.

Corrections and Additions to the System Information Guide

Dell PowerConnect 54xx Systems Information Update provides updated installation and configuration information that replaces part of the installation and configuration information in the Dell PowerConnect 54xx Systems Users Note: The phrase the device herein after is used to refer to the PowerConnect 54xx Series switches.

Corrections and Additions to the User Guide and CLI Reference Guide
Corrections and Additions to the CLI Reference Guide
CLI Command Description of Change The name of this command was changed into dot1x legacy-supp-mode. The accurate description of it is as follows: Use the dot1x legacy-supp-mode interface configuration command in multiple session mode to enable 802.1x switch to send periodic EAPOL request identity frame according to tx timeout period - in order to verify authentication in multiple session mode for clients that do not follow 802.1x standard behavior. Use the no form of this command to return to the default setting. Usage guidelines can remain unchanged. Supported length for line password is 0-80; and not 1-159 as documented in the CLI Guide for the command password Supported rate is 100-1000000 kbps instead of 3500-1000000 kbps as documented. For additional info regarding implications please see Usage Notes.

dot1x send-asynch-request-id

password

rate-limit

Corrections and Additions to the User Guide

Section Username Password Description of Change Supported length of password (if TIC is not defined) is 8-64 via web and 064 via CLI.

System Usage Notes

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PowerConnect 5424/5448 Release Notes

Title Ports are not removed automatically from a MAC Multicast group by removing them from the VLAN. Only management stations with super community access can set rndAlarmEnabling. Legacy Description Ports are not removed from MAC Multicast group configuration, when they are removed from the VLAN. Ports are added to the MAC Multicast group by using the command bridge multicast address ip-address add interface. Ports must be proactively removed from the MAC Multicast group by using the command bridge multicast address ip-address remove interface. Only management stations with super community access can set rndAlarmEnabling.It is not possible to set rndAlarmEnabling when rw community is defined for the Default View. When the dot1x legacy-supp-mode is enabled then Vista and/or other NAP compliant supplicants may not complete an authentication successfully. This mode is designed especially for Windows XP SP2 and when all stations connected to port are such. The PowerConnect 5424/5448 switch system supports backwards as well as forward compatibility with the following exception: When in DVA mode (and 802.1x multi session mode) and the device is downgraded to previously released version then DVA is no longer supported. Additionally, as 802.1x multi session was not supported on previously released version then 802.1x is disabled altogether. When changing system mode from DVA to iSCSI relevant DVA related configuration is hidden as required. However, as this is a per port configuration then additional per port configuration that is saved in the same table is also hidden; including 802.1x related configuration. Relevant SNMP error message is recorded Configuration of the Login Banner is not supported via cut & paste operation but requires use of designated CLI commands. When configuring more than one RADIUS server then to avoid timeout during the authentication process it is recommended to either configure server retries to 1 (radius-server retransmit 1) or reduce retries timeout to 1 sec (radiusserver timeout 1) or use the dead server control (radius-server deadtime 10) Though supported range of rate limit is 100-1000000 kbps it is recommended not to configure rate limit of a value that is lower than 3500kbps since in case of traffic that is comprised mostly of large packets then deviation is than expected.

Forward/Backward compatibility

System mode

Login Banner

802.1x

Rate Limit

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