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Cisco ME 3400 Ethernet Access Switch Software Configuration Guide
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Chapter 22 Configuring Port-Based Traffic Control
Configuring Port Security
You can configure an interface to convert the dynamic MAC addresses to sticky secure MAC addresses
and to add them to the running configuration by enabling sticky learning. To enable sticky learning, enter
the switchport port-security mac-address sticky interface configuration command. When you enter
this command, the interface converts all the dynamic secure MAC addresses, including those that were
dynamically learned before sticky learning was enabled, to sticky secure MAC addresses. All sticky
secure MAC addresses are added to the running configuration.
The sticky secure MAC addresses do not automatically become part of the configuration file, which is
the startup configuration used each time the switch restarts. If you save the sticky secure MAC addresses
in the configuration file, when the switch restarts, the interface does not need to relearn these addresses.
If you do not save the sticky secure addresses, they are lost.
If sticky learning is disabled, the sticky secure MAC addresses are converted to dynamic secure
addresses and are removed from the running configuration.
The maximum number of secure MAC addresses that you can configure on a switch is set by the
maximum number of available MAC addresses allowed in the system. This number is determined by the
active Switch Database Management (SDM) template. See Chapter 6, “Configuring SDM Templates.”
This number is the total of available MAC addresses, including those used for other Layer 2 functions
and any other secure MAC addresses configured on interfaces.
Security Violations
It is a security violation when one of these situations occurs:
• The maximum number of secure MAC addresses have been added to the address table, and a station
whose MAC address is not in the address table attempts to access the interface.
• An address learned or configured on one secure interface is seen on another secure interface in the
same VLAN.
You can configure the interface for one of three violation modes, based on the action to be taken if a
violation occurs:
• protect—when the number of secure MAC addresses reaches the maximum limit allowed on the
port, packets with unknown source addresses are dropped until you remove a sufficient number of
secure MAC addresses to drop below the maximum value or increase the number of maximum
allowable addresses. You are not notified that a security violation has occurred.
Note We do not recommend configuring the protect violation mode on a trunk port. The protect
mode disables learning when any VLAN reaches its maximum limit, even if the port has not
reached its maximum limit.
• restrict—when the number of secure MAC addresses reaches the maximum limit allowed on the
port, packets with unknown source addresses are dropped until you remove a sufficient number of
secure MAC addresses to drop below the maximum value or increase the number of maximum
allowable addresses. In this mode, you are notified that a security violation has occurred. An SNMP
trap is sent, a syslog message is logged, and the violation counter increments.
• shutdown—a port security violation causes the interface to become error-disabled and to shut down
immediately, and the port LED turns off. An SNMP trap is sent, a syslog message is logged, and the
violation counter increments. When a secure port is in the error-disabled state, you can bring it out
of this state by entering the errdisable recovery cause psecure-violation global configuration
command, or you can manually re-enable it by entering the shutdown and no shut down interface
configuration commands. This is the default mode.