1721 w/WIC-4ESW - Can't get BVI to work

[seanwaite]

I started to set up a 1721 router with WIC-4ESW. This is on an internal network, so only looking to just do routing from FA/0's interface to the networks attached to ports on the WIC. I first assigned just VLANs to 2 of the ports and this did not work. So I did some reading up and decided to use bridge groups. Except I still can not access the interfaces on the WIC. And by that I mean on the router itself I can not ping the ip assigned to the BVI.

I have another 1721 w/4 port that long ago I seem to remember simply assigning VLANs to the interfaces and I was able to communicate between the networks without issue (or maybe I just don't rememer that well). Thing is I should be able to at least ping the internal interfaces shouldn't I (assuming the status is up). I don't know why BVI2 and 3 are listed as down, nor do I seem to know how to bring these up.

This is what ip int br gives me:

1721#sh ip int br

Interface                  IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol

BVI2                       192.168.101.1   YES manual down                  down

BVI3                       10.10.7.1       YES manual down                  down

FastEthernet0              192.168.100.3   YES NVRAM  up                    up

FastEthernet1              unassigned      YES unset  up                    up

FastEthernet2              unassigned      YES unset  up                    up

FastEthernet3              unassigned      YES unset  up                    down

FastEthernet4              unassigned      YES unset  up                    down

Vlan1                      unassigned      YES NVRAM  up                    down

Vlan2                      unassigned      YES manual up                    down

Vlan3                      unassigned      YES manual up                    down

1721#

Below is the config:

version 12.4

hostname 1721

!

boot-start-marker

boot-end-marker

!

no aaa new-model

!

resource policy

!

ip cef

!

bridge irb

!

!

interface FastEthernet0

ip address 192.168.100.3 255.255.255.0

speed auto

!

interface FastEthernet1

switchport access vlan 2

!

interface FastEthernet2

switchport access vlan 3

!

interface FastEthernet3

!

interface FastEthernet4

!

interface Vlan1

no ip address

!

interface Vlan2

description FW_INSIDE$

no ip address

bridge-group 2

!

interface Vlan3

description FW_INSIDE$

no ip address

bridge-group 3

!

interface BVI2

ip address 192.168.101.1 255.255.255.0

!

interface BVI3

ip address 10.10.7.1 255.255.255.0

!

router eigrp 1

network 10.10.7.0 0.0.0.255

network 192.168.100.0

network 192.168.101.0

no auto-summary

!

ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.100.1

!

!

ip http server

ip http secure-server

!

access-list 101 permit ip any any

!

control-plane

!

bridge 1 protocol ieee

bridge 1 route ip

bridge 2 protocol ieee

bridge 2 route ip

bridge 3 protocol ieee

bridge 3 route ip

!

end

[Richard Burts · Accepted solution]

Sean

It has been quite a while since I worked with a 1721 and I am pleasantly surprised that it supports the WIC-4ESW.

In my (somewhat limited) experience with switch modules as part of IOS routers I have had good experience with assigning switch ports to VLANs and configuring VLAN interfaces with IP addresses.  I wonder what led you to use IRB and multiple BVI interfaces.

My first suggestion would be to remove IRB and the BVI interfaces and then assign IP addresses to interface VLAN 2 and VLAN 3. Give that a try and let us know how it works.

HTH

Rick

[seanwaite]

When first trying to configure just VLAN interfaces, and that did not work, I went with my limited knowledge of what I thought would work; configure bridge interface (because that is what I needed for my 877 ADSL router at home). Well I took your advice and removed the BVIs and just assigned IPs to the VLANs. This time however I got error message "

%Access VLAN 2 does not exist. Please add it to vlan database". This was new to me, I thought these would be automatically assigned to the VLAN database. Turns out I needed to go privileged EXEC and do"vlan database" then "vlan 2"..."vlan 3".

I never had to do that with my 877, so it never occured I would have to manually add these to the database. Doh! Anyways thanks for you reply and help on this Rick, one less headache + I learned something really valuable.

[Richard Burts]

Sean

I am glad that you got this solved and that my suggestion helped you to learn something valuable. Thank you for posting back to the forum indicating that the problem was solved. Thanks for using the rating system to mark the question as resolved. It makes the forum more useful when people can read about a problem and can know that a solution was found. Your marking has contributed to this process.

HTH

Rick