Finding Mac Address on Enterasys Switches

In extreme network switches, if you don’t remember which interface of which switch the client you included in the network exits from after a while, which happens 99% of the time, you have to count or distinguish the dusty cables one by one.

However, as in many network switches, it is possible to detect the port via Mac address in extreme switches. Enterasys allows you to find out which port the client you are looking for via mac address with different ways and commands.

Since it varies according to the switch series, we will list it separately for each series. If you want to see the information of the switch belonging to which series, you can turn it on and off by clicking on its title.

How to Search for Main (Farm) Switch Mac Address?

show mac address aa:00:bb:cc:dd:11

If this mac address you entered is available on the network, you will get a screen output as follows.

MAC Address: This is the mac address you are looking for. If this mac address is not in the ARP table on the switch, that is, if it is not attached to one of the ports belonging to this switch, it will write“Not Found“.
FID: This is the VLAN ID number wherethe mac addressyou are looking for is defined.
Port: If the interface name such as tg.1.4 or ge.1.3 or 13 is written in this section, the mac addressyou are looking for, that is, the client is physically attached to this port..4 or interface name such as ge.1.3 or 13, the Mac address you are looking for, that is, the client is physically attached to this port. If your switch’s Uplink, that is, the interface name that goes to the network is written(such asge.1.50, tg.1.52 or 52 ), then it means that the mac address you are looking for is not on this switch but on another switch in the same network.

If you pay attention in the example picture, it says lag.0.5. This is because all edge switches in my network are uplinked with“Link Aggregation” interfaces. In other words, there are 2 uplink ports but virtually these two ports are combined and act as a single interface.

Farm Switch Mac Address Lookup

show mac address aa:00:bb:cc:dd:11

If this mac address you entered is available on the network, you will get a screen output as follows.

MAC Address: This is the mac address you are looking for. If this mac address is not in the ARP table on the switch, that is, if it is not attached to one of the ports belonging to this switch, it will write“Not Found“.
FID: This is the VLAN ID number where the mac address you are looking for is defined.
Port: If the interface name such as tg.1.4 or ge.1.3 or 13 is written in this section, the mac address you are looking for, that is, the client is physically attached to this port..4 or interface name such as ge.1.3 or 13, the Mac address you are looking for, that is, the client is physically attached to this port. If your switch’s Uplink, that is, the interface name that goes to the network is written(such asge.1.50, tg.1.52 or 52 ), then it means that the mac address you are looking for is not on this switch but on another switch in the same network. If you pay attention to the example picture, it says lag.0.1. This is because all edge switches in my network are uplinked with“Link Aggregation” interfaces. In other words, there are 2 uplink ports but virtually these two ports are combined and act as a single interface.

Edge Switch – Mac Address Lookup on 800 Series Switches

show fdb mac_address aa:00:bb:cc:dd:11

VID: The VLAN ID number that the interface with the Mac address is a member of.
VLANName: The VLAN Name that the interface with the Mac address is a member of.
MAC Address: The mac address you are looking for.
Port: In this section tg.1.4 or ge.1.3 or 13, the Mac address you are looking for, that is, the client, is physically attached to this port. If your switch’s Uplink, that is, the interface name that goes to the network is written(such asge.1.50, tg.1.52 or 52 ), then it means that the mac address you are looking for is not on this switch but on another switch in the same network.

FDB Filter Database

There is a change in 800 series enterasys switches compared to other series. By using the FDB Filter Database command, we can determine the port where the mac address is a member. The only bad thing about this command is that you can only search among the mac addresses on that switch.

The 800 series switch creates an FDB table similar to the ARP table and lists the mac addresses, Interface information and VLAN information of the clients installed on it. So if the mac address you are looking for is not on this edge switch but on another edge switch, it will give you a “Not Found” warning.

When you encounter such a situation, do not give up and search other possible switches nearby. In my network, since the main switch is S series, I first query the mac address I am looking for on the main switch and then I determine which edge switch it is according to the lag port I receive and query only on that edge switch again.

Speaking of FDB, I would like to mention this command sequence which has a different use;

show fdb

With this command series, all real-virtual interfaces on the edge switch and their mac addresses and VLAN information are printed on the screen in a table.