I was wondering if it's at all possible to make a Dell Powerconnect 2848 switch show when running internal traceroutes. This would help with diagnosing issues and make it far easier to see where issues occur.
According to the datasheet, this particular switch is Layer 2 and 3 aware. I'm not completely sure what that means.
Is this possible?
Best Answer
No. The hops shown by
tracerouteshow the path that an IP packet follows on a routed (layer 3) network. Routers will show up, and switches will not.Switches are by their nature a layer 2 device: they receive and forward Ethernet frames, using the destination MAC address to determine the correct destination port. Some switches are also able to function as routers. We call such devices "layer 3 switches." Even a layer 3 switch will not necessarily show up on a traceroute, because much of the traffic passing through such a switch is layer 2 traffic within its own subnet.
In any event, the PowerConnect 2848 is not a layer 3 switch. It is "layer 3 aware" for QoS purposes only.