Basic Router Troubleshooting

Hetal Presswala

August 09, 2008

Objectives
 One of the primary functions of a router is to determine the
best path to a given destination.

 A router learns paths, also called routes, from an

administrator's configuration or from other routers by way of
routing protocols

 This module will describe methods for examining and

interpreting the contents of the routing table

 Network testing and troubleshooting are perhaps the most time

consuming components of every network administrator’s job.

 Efficient testing and troubleshooting must be done in a logical,

orderly, and well-documented fashion

 This module will introduce several of the most important of

these tools and provide practice in their use.

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The show ip route Command

The show ip route command displays the contents

of the IP routing table.

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Examining the Routing Table
Dublin# show ip route

Networks being
advertised

Out
interface

Codes, how Administ Met Next Time

the routes rative ric Hop since
were learnt Distance last
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Static Vs Dynamic Routes

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Static Vs Dynamic Cont…

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Need of Default route
Default routes are used when there isn’t a more specific entry in
routing table

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How to Configure Default Route

Alternatively use the default network command

Router(config)# ip default-network 172.16.1.2

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Determining Route Source and Destination

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 Routing – Role of Layer 2 and Layer 3 Addressing

Hop Source MAC Destination MAC Source IP Destination IP

1 00:ac:2d:34:56:11 00:01:46:26:23:a4 192.168.1.5 192.168.3.10

2 00:01:46:26:23:a4 00:04:24:98:55:44 192.168.1.5 192.168.3.10
3 00:04:24:98:55:44 00:2a:3b:3c:a4:33 192.168.1.5 192.168.3.10

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 Determining Administrative Distance
 AD measures the trustworthiness of the source of the route
information.
 The lower the AD, the more trustworthy the source.
 Different routing protocols have different default ADs.
 When there are two paths available to a destination the path with the
 lowest AD is used in the routing table.

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Determining the Route Metric
 Routing algorithms generate a number, called the metric value, for each
path through the network .
 The metric value is used to determine the best route to a destination.
 The various protocols base their metrics on different factors:

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Viewing the Routing Table
Use the following commands to find the last
routing update:


show ip route
 show ip route network

show ip route connected
 show ip route static

 show ip protocols
 show ip rip database

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Show ip route Command

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Introduction to Network Testing

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Structured Approach to Troubleshooting

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Typical Layer 1 Errors

 Broken cables
 Disconnected cables
 Cables connected to the wrong
ports
 Intermittent cable connection
 Wrong cables used for the task at
hand
 Transceiver problems
 DCE cable problems
 DTE cable problems
 Devices turned off

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Layer 1 Troubleshooting – using show interfaces
Physical layer (line
status)
BHM#show interface s0 Up: has Layer 1
Serial0 is up, line protocol is up connectivity
< output omitted > Down: L1 problem
Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
Administratively
< output omitted > To reset: BHM# clear
counters down: disabled
Received 73 broadcasts, 0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
0 input errors, 0 CRC, 0 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored, 0
abort
135 packets output, 7361 bytes, 0 underruns
0 output errors, 0 collisions, 37 interface resets
0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out
54 carrier transitions
Bad line,
Faulty Line
bad
hardware, interruption
hardware
cable or s, faulty
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Layer 1 Troubleshooting
The show interfaces – using show
serial interfaces
command

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Layer 1 Troubleshooting – show controllers

Router# show controllers serial 0

HD unit 0, idb = 0x1086D4, driver structure at 0x10E568
buffer size 1524 HD unit 0, V.35 DCE cable, clockrate 56000

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Troubleshooting Using show controllers serial
The show controllers serial Command

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Typical Layer 2 Errors

 Improperly configured serial

interfaces
 Improperly configured Ethernet
interfaces
 Improper encapsulation set
 Improper clock rate settings on
serial interfaces
 Network interface card (NIC)
problems

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Troubleshooting Using show cdp neighbors

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Troubleshooting Using show cdp neighborstail

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 Layer 2 Troubleshooting – show interfaces

BHM# show interface serial 0 Data-Link layer (up or

Serial0 is up, line protocol is up down)
Hardware is HD64570
Are keepalives being
Internet address is 172.17.0.2/16
received?
MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1544 Kbit, DLY 20000 usec, rely 255/255, load 1/255
Encapsulation HDLC, loopback not set, keepalive set (10 sec)
Last input 00:00:01, output 00:00:00, output hang never
Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
< output omitted >
Encapsulation must
match at both ends of
connection
If the interface is up and the line protocol is down, a Layer 2 problem exists.
• Among the possible causes are:
• No keepalives ,No clock rate ,Mismatch in encapsulation type

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Layer 2 Troubleshooting
 If the interface is up and the line protocol is down, a
Layer 2 problem exists.

 Indicates whether the IOS processes consider the

interface usable.

 Keepalives are defined as messages sent by one network

device to inform another network device that the virtual
circuit between the two is still active

 If the interface misses three consecutive keepalives, line

protocol is down

 When the line is down, the protocol is always down

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Show interfaces Command

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Typical Layer 3 Problem

 Routing protocol not enabled

 Wrong routing protocol enabled
 Incorrect IP addresses
 Incorrect subnet masks

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Layer 3 Troubleshooting Using Ping

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Ping
vista# ping ScopeDelhi
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.1.2, timeout is 2
seconds: ‘!’ indicate a
..!!! successful echo
Success rate is 60 percent (3/5), ‘.’ indicate the
round-trip min/avg/max = 32/33/36 ms
application timed out
waiting for an echo
Extended ping
• provides extra facilities for ping

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Troubleshooting Using traceroute Command

Test on a hop-by-hop basis – Each time is the RTT

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Troubleshooting
The show Routing Issues
ip route Command

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Troubleshooting
The show ipRouting Issues Command
protocols

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Layer 7 Troubleshooting Using Telnet

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Summary

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