Release Notes for Cisco 12000 Series Gigabit Switch Routers for Cisco IOS Release 11.2 GS

January 19, 1998

This release note describes the features and caveats for the Cisco 12000 series Gigabit Switch Routers (GSR) that support Cisco IOS Release 11.2 GS, up to and including Release 11.2(9)GS6. Cisco IOS Release 11.2(9)GS6 is based on Cisco IOS Release 11.2(9)P. In addition, Release 11.2(9)GS6 has fixes to software defects and support for new features not in 11.2(9)GS.

The Cisco 12000 series is a new product class of GSRs that perform Internet routing and switching at gigabit speeds. The Cisco 12000 series meets the exponential growth in demand for Internet bandwidth and brings scalability and high-performance services to IP-based networks. Designed to meet current and future Internet traffic requirements, the Cisco 12000 series initially supports IP backbone links at OC-3/STM-1 (155 Mbps) and OC-12/STM-4 (622 Mbps)--facilities up to four times faster than those used today.

Beginning with Cisco IOS Release 11.2, Cisco Systems provides several software release "trains" based on a single version of Cisco IOS software. Maintenance releases of the Major train software deliver fixes to software defects only, thus providing the most stable software for your network, for the features you need. In addition to the Major train, there are several Early Deployment (ED) trains. One ED train--Release 11.2 GS--delivers both fixes to software defects and support for the new Cisco 12000 series.

This release note does not describe features that are available in Release 11.2 or other ED trains. For information about features in Release 11.2, refer to the Release Notes for Cisco IOS Release 11.2. For information about features in other ED trains, refer to the specific release note for that train or the product-specific release notes. For additional information on features supported in Cisco IOS Release 11.2, refer to the Cisco IOS Software Product Bulletins.

Use these release notes in conjunction with the Release Notes for Cisco IOS Release 11.2. The software caveats that apply to Release 11.2 also apply to Release 11.2 GS.

This release note discusses the following topics:

• Documentation on page 2

• Platform Support for Release 11.2 GS on page 5

• New Features in Release 11.2(9)GS6 on page 6

• New Features in Release 11.2(9)GS4 on page 6

• New Features in Release 11.2(9)GS on page 7

• Cisco IOS Feature Sets on page 8

• Memory Requirements on page 9

• Release 11.2 GS Caveats on page 9

• Release 11.2(9)GS6 Caveats on page 9

• Release 11.2(9)GS4 Caveats/11.2(9)GS6 Modifications on page 10

• Release 11.2(9)GS Caveats/11.2(9)GS4 Modifications on page 10

Documentation

For the Cisco 12000 series GSRs, the documentation set consists of an installation and configuration guide and several configuration and installation notes. For Cisco IOS Release 11.2, the Cisco IOS documentation set consists of several modules, each module consisting of a configuration guide and a command reference. The documentation set also includes several supporting documents. Because not all features in the Cisco IOS documentation set are applicable on the Cisco 12000 series, only documents that contain features supported by the Cisco 12000 series are listed. For a list of the documents and chapter topics, refer to Table 1 and Table 2.

In addition to the Cisco IOS documentation set, this release note contains new or modified commands and error messages specific to the Cisco 12000 series that are not available in the Cisco IOS documentation set. For more information on these new commands, refer to the following feature modules:

• C isco 12000 Gigabit Switch Routers

• Cisco Express Forwarding

• System Error Messages

All the documents mentioned are available as printed manuals or electronic documents.

For electronic documentation on the Documentation CD-ROM, refer to the Cisco 12000 series installation and configuration guides, which are located in the Core/High End Routers database, and the Cisco IOS Release 11.2 configuration guides and command references, which are located in the Cisco IOS Software Configuration, Cisco IOS Release 11.2 database. You can also access Cisco technical documentation on the Web at http://www.cisco.com.

Platform Support for Release 11.2 GS

Cisco IOS Release 11.2 GS supports the Cisco 12000 series. Table 3 summarizes the supported line cards.

New Features in Release 11.2(9)GS6

There are no new features supported by the Cisco 12000 series in Release 11.2(9)GS6.

New Features in Release 11.2(9)GS4

This section briefly describes the features added for Release 11.2(9)GS4:

• Cisco 12008 Gigabit Switch Router--The Cisco 12008 is built around a high-speed switching fabric that provides nonblocking bandwidth to support high-performance IP-based LANs and WANs. The switching fabric is scalable from 10 to 40 Gbps on the Cisco 12008. The Cisco 12008 supports IP over SONET/SDH and ATM interfaces. The Cisco 12008 has eight user-configurable slots. These slots contain line cards and the Gigabit Route Processor (GRP) card. Network interfaces reside on line cards that provide connection between the router's switch fabric and the external networks. For more information on the Cisco 12008, refer to the Cisco 12008 Gigabit Switch Router Installation and Configuration Guide.

• New or modified commands--The following commands were added or changed in Release 11.2(9)GS4. In some cases, the commands existed in 11.2(9)GS, but were not documented. For more information, refer to the "Cisco 12000 Series Gigabit Switch Routers" feature module attached to this document.

  • set card-message command--Sets the message displayed on the LED on the front panel of one or more line cards.

  • clear card-message command--Clears the user-specified message that is displayed on the LED on the front panel of one or more line cards and revert to the normal status message for the line card.

  • show gsr command--Displays hardware information on the Cisco 12000 series. Optionally you can display the backplane NVRAM information, including a hex dump of the NVRAM information.

  • pos scramble-atm command--Enables SONET payload scrambling on a POS interface. SONET payload scrambling applies a self-synchronous scrambler (x^43+1) to the Synchronous Payload Envelope (SPE) of the interface to ensure sufficient bit transition density.

  • debug gsr errors command--Enables the display of mbus messages if a line card fails to come up properly.

  • debug ipc errors command--Enables warnings and errors from the Interprocess Communication (IPC) on the line card or Gigabit Route Processor (GRP) card.

  • debug mbus system command--Enables the display of low-level mbus messages.

• Error Messages--the list of error messages has been updated. For more information, refer to the "System Error Messages" feature module attached to this document.

New Features in Release 11.2(9)GS

This section briefly describes the features associated with the Cisco 12000 series including the updated features such as system error messages.

• Line cards supported on the Cisco 12000 series:

  • OC-12c/STM-4c Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) line card--Provides a single 622 Mbps ATM interface with one OC-12c/STM-4 SC-duplex single or multimode SONET/SDH connection.

  • OC-12c/STM-4c Packet-Over-SONET (POS) line card--Provides a single 622 Mbps POS interface with one OC-12c/STM-4 SC-duplex SONET connection.

  • Quad OC-3c/STM-1c Packet-Over-SONET (POS) line card--Provides four independent POS interfaces with four OC-3/STM-1 SC-duplex SONET connections.

Each line card has the following main components:

• Reassembly and Segmentation (ATM only)

• Transceivers

• Burst buffers

• Buffer memory

• Layer 3 switching accelerator

• Forwarding processor

• Silicon queuing engine

• Switch fabric interface

• Maintenance bus (MBus) controller

• Cisco Express Forwarding tables

• Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF)--CEF is an advanced Layer 3 switching technology for IP. CEF optimizes network performance and scalability for networks with large and dynamic traffic patterns, such as those associated with the Internet, Web-based applications, and interactive sessions. For more information, refer to the "Cisco Express Forwarding" feature module attached to this document.

• System Error Messages--The system software sends Cisco IOS system error messages to the console (and, optionally, to a logging server on another system) during operation. Not all system error messages indicate problems with your system. Some are purely informational, while others may help diagnose problems with communications lines, internal hardware, or the system software. For more information, refer to the "System Error Messages" feature module attached to this document.

For more information on the Cisco 12000 series and line cards, refer to publications that accompanies the hardware. Also refer to the feature modules attached to this release note for a description of the new or modified Cisco IOS commands on the Cisco 12000 series.

Cisco IOS Feature Sets

The Cisco 12000 series supports only the IP Routing feature set in Cisco IOS Release 11.2 GS. Table 4 lists the features available in the IP Routing feature set.

Memory Requirements

Table 5 describes the memory requirements for the IP Routing feature set for the Cisco 12000 series supported by Cisco IOS Release 11.2 GS.

Cisco 12000 series are shipped with a 20-MB PCMCIA Flash memory card.

Important Notes

• Release 11.2(9)GS1 through Release 11.2(9)GS3 were not released.

• Release 11.2(9)GS5 was not released.

• The following caveats have been fixed in Release 11.2(9)GS6: CSCdj73774, CSCdj70284, CSCdj73508, and CSCdj66195.

• The if-console command has been changed to attach. This change will occur in the next release of the Cisco IOS software.

Release 11.2 GS Caveats

The following sections list caveats for Release 11.2 GS that apply to the Cisco 12000 series. Refer to the Release Notes for Cisco IOS Release 11.2 publication for a list of the caveats that apply to Release 11.2. The caveats that apply to Cisco IOS Release 11.2 apply to Release 11.2 GS.

The complete caveats against Release 11.2 are also available in the Cisco Documentation CD-ROM package. In the CD-ROM package, access the Cisco IOS 11.2 caveats in the Cisco IOS Release 11.2 database.

If you have an account on Cisco Connection Online (CCO), you can view additional caveats using the bug search tools in the Bug Toolkit, such as the Bug Navigator.

Release 11.2(9)GS6 Caveats

This section describes possibly unexpected behavior by Release 11.2 GS, up to and including Release 11.2(9)GS6.

• The GSR currently does not support booting from the network over the line cards. The only interface on the GSR that is able to boot from the network is the Ethernet interface (interface Ethernet/0) on the GRP. The correct router behavior would be to allow booting from the network over any of the line cards. [CSCdj26114]

• Due to memory fragmentation problems, a GRP card with only 64 MB of memory might run out of memory (issue NOMEMORY or MALLOCFAIL errors) while carrying a full-internet routing table. [CSCdj39725]

• The microcode reload command allows another immediate command to be issued; this is different than the operation on a Cisco 7500 series router. Performing a microcode reload on any of the line cards will immediately return the console command prompt. This allows an immediate subsequent command to be issued to the reloading line card. This command will not execute, of course. However, for many commands, no indication that the command fails to execute is given. An example of such a command is clear counters, which produces erroneous packet and error counts. [CSCdj43633]

• Enabling IPC debug messages on line cards by using debug ipc all command might result in the GRP pausing indefinitely while generating the output from the line card. The correct behavior would be to allow the user to disable the debugs on line cards or reload the microcode on them. It is advisable not to use debug ipc all. The possibly unexpected behavior might require the GRP to be power cycled. [CSCdj44737]

• The execute-on EXEC command that runs on the GRP and the executing commands on the line card currently suffers the following deficiencies: cannot handle line card commands requiring input, cannot handle paging, and cannot filter out illegal line card commands. [CSCdj48044]

Release 11.2(9)GS4 Caveats/11.2(9)GS6 Modifications

This section describes possibly unexpected behavior by Release 11.2(9)GS4. Unless otherwise noted, these caveats apply to all 11.2 GS releases up to and including 11.2(9)GS4.

No caveats previously listed for Release 11.2(9)GS4 have been resolved in Release 11.2(9)GS6. Refer to Release 11.2(9)GS6 Caveats for a list of current caveats.

Release 11.2(9)GS Caveats/11.2(9)GS4 Modifications

This section describes possibly unexpected behavior by Release 11.2(9)GS. Unless otherwise noted, these caveats apply to all 11.2 GS releases up to and including 11.2(9)GS.

All the caveats listed in this section are resolved in release 11.2(9)GS4.

• In a redundant fabric configuration (for example, with two clock scheduler cards [CSC]) if the master CSC card needs to be removed, the GSR currently needs to be reloaded. The master CSC card is generally in slot 17. If the master CSC card is removed, all access to the switch fabric from the line cards and GRP will be lost. The correct router behavior would be to detect the removal of the CSC card and switch over to the redundant CSC card. [CSCdj43058]

• In rare cases (not well understood or easily repeatable) after a reload, the GRP fails to initialize the line cards correctly. The symptom of this defect is the GRP repeatedly displaying the following message on the console:

MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 1 in Stream 7 dropped

To verify that you are experiencing this problem, execute the show diag summary command as shown below.

GSR-1#sh diag sum
SLOT 0  (RP/LC 0):
%MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 1 in Stream 7 dropped
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 0
SLOT 1  (RP/LC 1):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 1
SLOT 2  (RP/LC 2):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 2
SLOT 6  (RP/LC 6):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 6
SLOT 7  (RP/LC 7):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 7
SLOT 8  (RP/LC 8):
%MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 1 in Stream 7 dropped
%MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 1 in Stream 7 dropped
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 8
SLOT 9  (RP/LC 9):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 9
SLOT 10 (RP/LC 10):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 10

To recover from this problem at the present time, power cycle the router. [CSCdj45589]

• A line card might not come up as the GSR boots. If the show diag command displays a line card to be stuck in either "Board State is In Reset (IN RSET)" or "Board State is Card Powered (PWR ON)," it might be possible to recover from this failure with the following sequence of commands

  test mbus power SLOT off
  wait 10 seconds
  test mbus power SLOT on

where SLOT is the slot number of the failing line card. [CSCdj47113]

• The CSCdj37195 defect is well understood and will be fixed in an upcoming release of GSR software. The problem is easy to avoid: it involves the debug ipc all command, which is not generally useful unless you are debugging router software problems. The problem is encountered if, while receiving the output of debug ipc all, you then use the console terminal to send a break, causing the router to crash to the ROM monitor. Subsequently booting the router might cause a condition under which messages like the following appear:

%MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 4 in Stream 7 dropped
%MBUS_SYS-3-REASSEMBLY_ERROR: Slot = 2 Stream = 1 first packet lost
%MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 4 in Stream 7 dropped
%MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 4 in Stream 7 dropped
%MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 9 in Stream 7 dropped
%BFRP-3-UCODETIMEOUT: Line card did not respond to image download (5)
%BFRP-3-UCODETIMEOUT: Line card did not respond to image download (11)
%MBUS_SYS-3-REASSEMBLY_ERROR: Slot = 5 Stream = 1 first packet lost
%MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 4 in Stream 7 dropped
%MBUS_SYS-3-TIMEOUT: Timeout on mbus request. Dest = 5, type = 5, addr = 0x1
%MBUS-3-FAILED_READ_REGISTER: Could not read Register 20001 in slot 11 config_slot_for_redundant_fab_clk
%MBUS_SYS-3-NO_BUFFER: Message from slot 9 in Stream 7 dropped
%MBUS_SYS-3-TIMEOUT: Timeout on mbus request. Dest = 5, type = 5, addr = 0x1
-Traceback= 60122BD8 60122C84 60120978 601252FC 6012235C 601224B4 6011DF18 600C0498 600C0484

Typing the show diag command displays something similar to the following:

SLOT 0  (RP/LC 0):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 0  MBUS Agent Software version 01.18
  Board is analyzed
  Board State is IOS Running (MSTR  RP)
%MBUS-3-NO_FABRIC_CLOCK: Slot 5 does not see any fabric clock
Card will not operate on fabric1
SLOT 1  (RP/LC 1):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 1  MBUS Agent Software version 01.18
  ROM Monitor version 00.03
  Fabric Downloader version 00.0B
  Board is analyzed
  Board State is Launching IOS (IOS  STRT)
SLOT 2  (RP/LC 2):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 2  MBUS Agent Software version 01.18
  ROM Monitor version 00.03
  Fabric Downloader version 00.0B
  Board is analyzed
  Board State is Launching IOS (IOS  STRT)
SLOT 4  (RP/LC 4):
Unable to get EEPROM contents for slot 4  MBUS Agent Software version 01.18
  ROM Monitor version 00.03

To recover from this problem, power cycle the router. [CSCdj37195]

• On a router with multiple line cards, when you reload the microcode on one of the line cards, a valid point-to-point adjacency sometimes becomes incomplete on another line card. The point-to-point adjacency re-establishes itself on the gigabit route processor (GRP) and on the native line card after it comes up but still remains invalid on the other line card. The problem is that sometimes there is a race condition where the GRP fails to notify the other line cards of the point-to-point adjacency reestablishing itself. A simple workaround is to reload the adjacency from the GRP on all line cards. [CSCdj47803]

• The GSR does not support more than 300 interfaces (including subinterfaces) on a single router. The number of secondary addresses is limited to 250 per interface. [CSCdj46080]