LLDP Chassis Discovery on Nexus 5548UP

[Mierdin21]

I'm seeing several error messages like these in the logs of my Nexus 5548UP switches.

2012 Apr 24 16:39:41.470 SSV_5K_SW2 %LLDP-5-SERVER_ADDED: Server with Chassis ID aaaa.bbbb.cccc Port ID mgmt0 management address X.X.X.X discovered on local port mgmt0 in vlan 0 with enabled capability Bridge

2012 May  2 05:05:00.627 COR_CCO-NX-5548-UP_01 %LLDP-5-SERVER_REMOVED: Server with Chassis ID aaaa.bbbb.cccd Port ID aaaa.bbbb.cccc on local port Eth1/1 has been removed

2012 May  2 05:06:40.328 COR_CCO-NX-5548-UP_01 %LLDP-5-SERVER_ADDED: Server with Chassis ID aaaa.bbbb.cccd Port ID aaaa/bbbb.cccc management address NIL discovered on local port Eth1/1 in vlan 0 with enabled capability None

I'm not sure what this is referring to - I will say that these 5548s are serving as the distribution layer for a UCS chassis (2x 6120 FIs) but didn't know what kind of visibility the Nexus would have into that - the chassis keyword is what's alluding to this in my mind, and I'm seeing these messages whenever interfaces that connect downstream to the fabric interconnects are brought up or down. Can someone clarify/elaborate on this error message and exactly what it's reporting?

[Giuseppe Larosa]

Hello Matt,

LLDP is a standards based equivalent of CDP that has some usage in multivendor environments for VOIP and also in data centers.

see

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/layer2/502_n1_1m/Cisco_n5k_layer2_config_gd_rel_502_N1_1_chapter12.html

and

http://www.eetimes.com/design/communications-design/4009357/Tutorial-on-the-Link-Layer-Discovery-Protocol

The messages by themselves look like innocent on user ports like eth1/1 and they should be only notifications of events related to LLDP protocol activity on LLDP frames received by neighboring devices that might include the blade servers that you have mentioned.

The messages say that a new device of category server has just been discovered out of local port X or it has just been removed by LLDP protocol.

Hope to help

Giuseppe

[Mierdin21]

But the connectivity is directly to a 6120 fabric interconnect for Cisco UCS - why would this show up as a server/chassis? Also, I'm seeing CDP messages as well, so it seems like CDP and LLDP are operating in parallel.