[c-nsp] Appletalk (don't laugh) through Cisco switch

[Jeff Kell]

Jeff Kell wrote:

> "We have researched this problem and discovered that there is a known
> issue with running AppleTalk through a Managed CISCO Switch."

To answer some replies already received, and to clarify the original
situation...

> Are all the Mac's on the same Vlan on that switch?

Yes.  It is an old 8Mb 2924-XL actually now (the 3550 was just the 
uplink), we tried a 2950 with same result, and "downgraded" to the 
2924XL to see if it helped).  The ports in question are all on vlan192.

> Apple computers come up on the network card very fast.. And I found
> that I had to enable portfast on every port...

We do that religiously on host ports (portfast).  Configuration of the
ports is simply:

> interface FastEthernet0/xx switchport access vlan 192 spanning-tree
> portfast

We do have some subnets in the core routing Appletalk, just not to this
particular building, and have never had issues before.  Been doing this
long time no problems.


> Jim is right about the portfast.  That has caused me a lot of grief,
> especially in labs where netboot is used a lot.

We have a G5 server netbooting two labs across subnets.  Not afraid of 
Appletalk :-)

> Older Novell clients (using IP) did the same thing...portfast worked
> like a charm.

We have legacy Novell over IPX, and new Netware Client32 over IP.  No 
problems there either.

Which leaves me with the question, what can this application possibly be 
doing Appletalk-ish that wouldn't work on a plain old layer2 2924XL? 
And note that their recommended "solution" is to use a non-managed 
switch (they did not say "hub" which I might have bought into being 
somehow different).

Jeff