5304 default gateway problem

[Todd Histed_1]

I have a nat/firewall box on my network with IP address 10.1.0.13/16. I have my 5304 physically located as my core switch in my network with IP address 10.1.0.10/16. My 2626 has an IP address of 10.1.0.11/16.

I setup my 5304 to have a default gateway of 10.1.0.13, and then I set my computer to use the 5304 (10.1.0.10) as its gateway. The 5304 does not forward the packets to my NAT/Firewall(10.1.0.13) as it should. When I try to ping a known good internet IP address I get Request timed out.

I'll attach a diagram of my network if that helps.

[Kell van Daal]

Did you enable routing on the 5304?
switch(config)#ip routing

If so, how did you define your default gateway?
With routing you should use:
switch(config)#ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.1.0.13
instead of:
switch(config)#ip default-gateway 10.1.0.13

[Kevin Richter_1]

You mentioned your 5304 is your "core switch." If it is still in its default switching mode, you can either have your PC/clients on the network point to your NAT/Firewall directly as their default gateway or enable routing on the 5304.

The default gateway setting on the 5300 is only relevant when routing is disabled. Once routing is enabled, all the relevant routers will need to know how to get to each other's networks. RIP, OSPF and Static Routes are used to ensure routes to networks are known. (especially the default route statement pointing, for example, to your firewall - "ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.1.0.13")

[Emmanuel_9]

Hi Todd,

Just wanted to drop an email to mention that I have the same sort of problem but with a ProCurve 4140gl!

i) - Switch configuration: Starting from the factory default settings (out of the box), I first set up an IP address on the default VLAN (194.83.163.200/24). I then add a default route (toward 194.83.163.50) and enable IP routing. A firewall/router (IP address 194.83.163.50) is connected to one port of the switch. Behind this firewall is the Internet. A test PC is configured with an IP address within the range 194.83.163.0/24 and connected to the switch.

ii) - The symptoms: From the test PC, we can ping both the switch and the firewall. We also successfully administer them from the PC. However, when it comes to pinging hosts on the Internet (or a test host located behind the firewall) the behaviour is different. No matter what host we ping, we always get the first reply only. The next replies are "Request timed out" messages. It seems that the switch simply drops the reply packets (or really takes its time) except the 1st one!
Browsing the Internet (or accessing any service on a host behind the firewall) doesn't give much satisfaction either, the communication is intermittent, the traffic stops flowing for a few seconds (or minutes) and suddenly comes back... to stop again a few seconds later.

iii) - Additional tests: An HP ProCurve switch 2626 setup identically works perfectly. An Extreme Networks Summit48si setup in the same way also gives satisfaction.

iv) - I've carried out more tests and this is becoming interesting... If I set up a more specific static route to reach a specific network behind my firewall, the switch behaves normally. It is absolutely stable... If I delete this specific route the switch is still stable (as long as I don't reboot it). The default route 0.0.0.0 is used by the switch with no performance pb at all. CONCLUSION: My conclusion is that it is a sort of bug that really needs sorting!!!

If you have any update from HP on this, I'm taking it. I've emailed them but got no answer yet.

Kind regards,

Emmanuel