[c-nsp] Whats happens when TCAM is full on 7600/RSP720RSP-3CXL?

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Fri, 18 Sep 2020, chiel wrote:

> I have been hearing different scenario of what would happen when the TCAM is 
> full:
> 1. The whole thing goes into software routing mode for all routes which 
> causes 100% CPU and resulting and unusable box
> 2. New route entries will just get dropped, current entries just stay in TCAM
> 3. New route entries will be software routed, but entries that are already in 
> TCAM will be hardware routed. You won't notice much impact in the beginning.
>
> What is true?

In my experience (which is almost a decade old though) the device goes 
into a semi-unstable state where some traffic is dropped/unusable, and can 
only be fully recovered by reboot.

My advice is "don't let that happen".

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se