Connectivity Tests
Introduction 6
Find IP
Enter the Target IP by pressing the address box and
using the keypad. Press 
(Find). If you enter an IP address, the Network Assistant first tries to determine the MAC address of that station before performing the search. The actual search is performed using the MAC address. Although the IP address does not have to be on the same subnet as the Network Assistant, it does need to be on the local segment. It can determine the MAC address of the IP station only if it is on the local segment.
Mode of Operation
Before Station Locator can search for a MAC address, it must first find all the switches on the network. Switch Discovery is performed automatically during the discovery process. When you run Station Locator, the Network Assistant searches the forwarding tables of each switch that it has discovered. It searches the Bridge MIB and some switches’ private MIBs to get the port information.
In order for switch discovery to work properly, the Network Assistant needs to know the community string of the switches. You can configure the community strings in the SNMP Config menu (read “SNMP” earlier in this chapter). If you change or add community strings, you can rerun Autotest or Network Health so the Network Assistant will use the new community strings.
Results
The Network Assistant reports all switches that have the target MAC address in their forwarding tables. The target MAC address may appear in more than one switch. This can happen in a switch hierarchy environment. When a station on one switch communicates with a station on another switch, the MAC address of each station will appear in the forwarding tables of each switch.
The Network Assistant does not attempt to determine the switch to which the station is directly connected. To determine the switch to which the station is directly connected, you need to be familiar with switch hierarchy. If you can recognize the description or port number as an uplink port, then you can deduce that the station is not directly connected to that switch.
For each switch discovered, the following information is presented:
Name – SNMP name of the switch
IP – IP address of the switch
MAC – MAC address of the switch
qMfr - Manufacturer and model
Port – The port number on which the MAC address was found. Some switches encode the slot and port number into the port number. For example, a switch may represent slot 10/port 3 with a port value of
