Administrator's Guide v4.1.1 Manual

Configuring In-Band Management
● In-band management overview.....................................................................................551
● Configuring an in-band management interface in standalone mode.............................553
● Configuring an in-band management interface using OSPF.........................................554
In-band management overview
In-band management on the Brocade VDX switches allows you to manage devices through Layer 3-
enabled front-end Ethernet ports. An in-band management interface is relatively easy to configure and
the most cost-effective management solution, because management traffic and data traffic use the
same physical port (a design principle referred to as "fate-sharing"). Therefore, no special infrastructure
is required to support management traffic. The downside is that any problem in the data network can
potentially cause loss of connectivity, and thus loss of management function, to the managed devices.
Therefore, it is highly recommended that you configure a dedicated serial connection for any device in
your network as an out-of-band fallback solution in the event in-band management becomes
unavailable.
In-band management facilitates management tasks such as downloading firmware, SNMP polling,
SNMP traps, troubleshooting, and configuration when an out-of-band management interface is not
available. The table below lists some of the applications you can use with in-band management. The
application listing is not meant to be exhaustive.
Supported applications for in-band management TABLE 90
Application Description
FWDL Download firmware from an external server to a remote device using FTP or SCP.
SCP Transfer files by using the Secure Copy Protocol.
SSH Connect to a device through the Secure Shell application.
SNMP Manage devices through the Simple Network Management Protocol.
Telnet Connect to a device by using Telnet.
In-band management prerequisites
The management station must be able to acquire an IP address and the routes to the management
network. You can configure the management station to use a static IP address or to acquire an IP
address dynamically or through protocols such as DHCP. A default gateway can be used to forward all
the packets from the management station to the management network. Refer to Configuring Ethernet
management interfaces on page 66.
In addition, you must configure IP routes and subnets. The front-end Ethernet port that you configure for
management access acts as a router with IP forwarding implemented to allow communication with the
target device. If the management station and the managed devices are in separate subnets, it is
Network OS Administrator’s Guide
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