Starting a Switch

Question 1

Shows the overall system status.

Answer 1

SYST

Question 2

Shows the status of the extra (redundant) power supply.

Answer 2

RPS

Question 3

If on (green), each port LED represents the status of this port.

Answer 3

STAT

Question 4

If on (green), each port LED represents the duplex of this port (on is full-duplex; off means half-duplex).

Answer 4

DUPLX

Question 5

If on (green), each port LED represents the speed of this port, as follows: Off means 10 Mbps; Solid green means 100 Mbps; Flashing green means 1 Gbps.

Answer 5

SPEED

Question 6

Some switches have a PoE LED in the system status group of LEDs. If on (green), each port LED indicates if the port is supplying PoE.

Answer 6

PoE

Question 7

A button that cycles the meaning of the port LEDs (H) through four states (STAT, DUPLX, SPEED, PoE).

Answer 7

MODE

Question 8

Different meanings, depending on the port mode as toggled using the mode button.

Answer 8

Port

Question 9

Indicates the status of the interface. The first part is the hardware status, and the second part is the line protocol. The hardware status is the status of the OSI physical layer, and the line protocol is the status of the OSI data link layer; Together the two are the status of the TCP/IP link layer. In this example, the entire link layer is active and ready; In other words, the interface can send and receive frames. This state is referred to as “up/up.” Note that if the hardware is down, the line protocol will also be down.

Answer 9

FastEthernet0/1 is up, line protocol is up (connected)

Question 10

Indicates the Media Access Control (MAC) address of the interface.

Answer 10

Hardware is Fast Ethernet, address is 001e.147c.bd01

Question 11

Shows the type and mode of connection. Other possibilities include half-duplex and 10 Mbps.

Answer 11

Full-duplex, 100 Mbps

Question 12

Reports interface traffic statistics for average input rate

Answer 12

5-minute input rate, 31,000 bps

Question 13

Identification of the software by name and version number

Always specify the complete version number when reporting a possible software problem. In this example, the switch is running Cisco IOS Release 15.0(1)SE3.

Answer 13

Cisco IOS Software version

Question 14

Current days and time since the system was last booted

In this example, the switch uptime is 15 hours and 30 minutes.

Answer 14

Switch uptime

Question 15

System image name and file location (local or remote filesystem)

Answer 15

System image file

Question 16

Hardware platform information, including revision and amount of RAM

Answer 16

Switch platform

Question 17

Processor board ID

Answer 17

Device serial number