What is the switch IP?

[buffebruddahs]

I walked into an environment that has some edge switches (Procurve 5412zL) w/ no IP listed. I have ordered the console cable for the switch but is there anything that I can do in the mean time to get into these switches? I'm in a time crunch. 

[Emil_G]

Hello, 

The switch is a DHCP client by default. So if no one configured static IP addresses, there is a chance that the switches are obtaining IP addresses from the DHCP server. The MAC address of the switch should be visible on the same label where the serial number is printed. You could check whether this MAC address appears in the DHCP leases and then use the assigned IP address to access the switch.

Another option are the neighbor discovery protocols LLDP and CDP. If the switches are connected to a managed switch that supports LLDP or CDP this switch should have information about the 5412zls in his neighbor table. You can basically access this information with a CLI command. For example on the HP ProVision switches:

show lldp info remote-device <port number>

show cdp neighbors detail

[henca]

It is also possible to get lldp information from the switch using lldp software on a computer connected to the switch. One example of such software is lldpd: http://vincentbernat.github.io/lldpd/

As a last resort you could also try to ping the broadcast address and then look in the arp table, searching for the mac address of the switch.