Cannot access 5308xl http or telnet

[sparkymarcopolo]

Whilst tagging a port last week, our switch decided to stop responding. It seems to be functioning ok but I can no longer ping, telnet or http to it to see what's going on.

What are my options to see what's messed up, console?

[EricAtHP]

Yes, connect to the serial console port with 9600-N-8-1 and the included serial cable.

Worst case scenario, you can reset it to factory defaults and it will get a DHCP address. You would need access to your DHCP server to determine the address it acquired.

[sparkymarcopolo]

Telnet using putty does not seem to work on the unit (ok on another model procurve). I do not really want to be hard resetting since it's a production environment with various vlans configured.

I've read that depress CLEAR button for at least 1 second to remove operator and manager passwords.

Perform reset to factory default configuration simultanuously depress RESET & CLEAR buttons and CONTINUE to press CLEAR button while releasing RESET button. After the Self Test LED begins to flash, release the CLEAR button.

Any thoughts?

[sparkymarcopolo]

Console access is working again (I just left it for a while and it came up).

When I type menu, it asks if I want to save the current configuration. I'm a little hesitant here because I don't want the configuration to change (it was fine before http access stopped).

Suggestions?

[EricAtHP]

When you pressed clear for several seconds, you erased the passwords, which changed the running configuration so it doesn't match the saved configuration. You can do a "show config" and a "show run" from the command prompt and compare the two to see what has changed.

[sparkymarcopolo]

I haven't pressed anything as yet, the last action I did via http (10.0.0.32) access was to press save on some vlan settings. At that point my browser session closed (for some reason) and since then I've been unable to access the switch. I've powered it off to see if that would fix anything and it hasn't. Vlan routing seems to be working though

I've since managed to telnet using our existing username/password and I can see under management the default vlan which has IP settings (which are 10.0.0.32 and DG 10.0.0.1) - I can ping 10.0.0.1 fine. Also, the previous prompt about saving has since gone away.

Am I missing something here?

[EricAtHP]

When you powered off the switch, it reverted to its saved configuration. That is why you can access it again. I would assume that the change you made right before you lost access is not there anymore.

[sparkymarcopolo]

Shouldn't the unit revert to loading NVRAM and then use the last saved RAM state to load a running config which was running fine.

I noticed when I console connected and ran show running-config status it prompted ''running config has been changed and needs to be saved'

If I view the config via the menu system I can see the default vlan has an IP, and even the config I changed is there so what going on?

The last save was selecting all the ports and setting some tagging (that's when my browser session bombed), I've now deleted that vlan and saved it using the menu system.

[EricAtHP]

Maybe this will help:

When making changes via the CLI, changes are not saved to the startup config until the "write memory" command is issued. When using the Web UI or the Menu, changes are saved as soon as they are made.

If you were only making changes via the Menu, then I can't explain why you lost access and got it back later without making any changes. That said, at least you are back into the switch now.

If I could give you some advice, discontinue using the Menu interface (typing the "menu" command at the CLI). Development effort is not being invested in it anymore and I would not be surprised if it isn't tested thoroughy anymore. If you don't like the CLI, then use the Web UI. The Web UI isn't fully functional but it does let you do many of the most common config settings.

Anyway, just be grateful that you are back in now. I think the only way to know for sure what happened would be to see the exact changes that were made and the config where you were starting from. Anything else is just specualtion.

[sparkymarcopolo]

Thanks Eric, I appreciate all the help people are providing and understand what you've said about the nvram (startup) and ram (running) configs. Also that menu items are saved on the fly and reboots are only required if a '*' appears next to a change.....but web management are realtime.

At the moment I still have no telnet or web access and cannot ping the switch either. Looking at the switch settings via the consle menu system I can clearly see the following:

DG - 10.0.0.1

default_vlan - 10.0.0.32 / 255.255.255.0

Under switch config I can see:

web agent enabled yes (yes), inbound telnet enabled yes (yes)