[c-nsp] 2924XL gotchas?

[Justin M. Streiner]

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006, Adam Greene wrote:

> Hi ... I'm thinking of using an old 2924XL for some basic dot1q tagging. I
> don't expect to try to push more than 5Mbps through a few ports
> simultaneously. Any gotchas I should be aware of besides security issues
> arising from running an old unpatched IOS?

Are you using a 2924XL or a 2924XL-EN (enterprise)?  The original 2924XLs 
had some serious limitations in their trunking capabilities, plus the 
very small amount of RAM and flash in the box really limited what 
capabilities could be coded into the software and still be able to fit in 
the flash.  As you mentioned, there could also be unpaatched security 
vulnerabilities to deal with as well.  If I remember correctly, some 
2924XL IOS versions only supported ISL trunking.

2924XL-ENs are very cheap on the secondary market.  I bought one for 
around $150 a year or so ago on ebay for use in my home network.  This 
with a recent version of IOS for that platform, has a pretty stable dot1q 
implementation.  I don't know if it supports extended-range VLANs though - 
I haven't tried.

jms