Interface description case change

[daniel.litwin]

Hello.

Catalyst 3548XL , IOS 12.0(5)WC17

I get the following: IF-MIB::ifDescr.53 = STRING: VLAN1000 when running an snmpget on that port

Catalyst 355024PWR, IOS 12.2(44)SE6

I get the following IF-MIB::ifDescr.29 = STRING: Vlan1000 when running on an snmpget on that port

Notice the case difference on the "vlan" value returned.  My network monitoring program (Zenoss) throws an error due to VLAN and not Vlan being returned.  Is there any way to change this case on the cisco device?  Would an alias work on the cisco device?

Much thanks.  Esoterric, I know.

Dan

[phiharri · Accepted solution]

Hey Dan,

Interesting question - to my knowledge 3500XL switches have always returned uppercase "VLAN" for ifDescr on SVIs, and there isn't any way to influence this with configuration.

An interface description would be returned in ifAlias but I'm guessing that won't solve the problem with Zenoss. There are no hard rules for the exact content of ifDescr and applications should not rely on it being consistent across platforms or even IOS releases.

On the plus side Zenoss is open-source, so I'm sure it is possible to modify it to treat either case in the same way.

/Phil