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gozu
Asked: 2012-07-17 09:10:05 +0800 CST

How do I draw a layer 2 (link layer) network map containing Cisco and *NIX boxes?

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I've been tasked with drawing a layer 2 network map of our very small datacenter network.

There is one 1841 cisco router, two 3560 cisco catalyst switches and 4 solaris sunfire T-1000 boxes.

I have logged in to the cisco boxes and downloaded the running configuration files for all 3. I have also gotten the output of ifconfig -a for the 4 solaris boxes.

my question is: what reading/learning should I do now to put it all together? Any tips?

I was looking at tools such as lanmap2 but that is for linux, not SunOS and I don't know if I could recompile it successfully myself.

I understand intermediate networking, but I'm not a routing guy. I know a VLAN is a way to segregate groups of ports in different switches in their own subnetworks and I hear that a trunk is a connection between two routers that conveys VLAN information but that's the extent of my knowledge on those two topics.

networking solaris cisco cisco-catalyst mapping

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This answer includes a simple LAN diagram that could serve as a template for your network; note that the colors (green / pink / orange) indicate different vlans.

    Typically you want to include details like switch / router port numbers, vlan information, IP addressing / netmask, hostnames, and the port name of the interface on the server.

    If you don't have a copy of Visio, you can use Inkscape to generate drawings. If you are adventurous, you can even build inkscape-compatible copies of Cisco's networking icons

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  2. Considering the number of devices, you don't need any extra tools for this, just an understanding of how things are wired. Because you're drawing a LAYER 2 map, you're concerned primarily with MAC addresses and potentially VLANs.

    First, start by diagramming layer 1, and verify how things are cabled. I suspect that the router is connected to one or both switches, or just to one switch and the switches are daisy-chained.

    Then grab the MAC address-table off of the router and the two switches and start to build your adjacencies.

    Considering there are 4 servers, 2 switches, and 1 router, you should be able build a complete layer 2 topology in under 15 minutes.

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