Troubleshooting HSRP on Cisco Nexus 5500 Switches

Author
Carole Warner Reece
Architect

I was recently troubleshooting an HSRP issue with two Nexus 5500 switches that both were in the active state. (I was trying to add HSRP to a long-running pair of Nexus 5500s.)


HQ-ST-5K1# sh hsrp brie
                     P indicates configured to preempt.
                     |
Interface   Grp Prio P State    Active addr      Standby addr     Group addr
Vlan230     43  110  P Active   local            unknown          172.20.23.1  (conf)
HQ-ST-5K1#
HQ-ST-5K1# sh run int vlan 230
 
. . .
 
interface Vlan230
  description NFS_172.20.23.0/25
  no shutdown
  ip address 172.20.23.2/25
  hsrp 43
    ip 172.20.23.1
   preempt
    priority 110
 
HQ-ST-5K1#

 

HQ-ST-5K2# sh hsrp brie
P indicates configured to preempt.
|
Interface   Grp Prio P State    Active addr      Standby addr     Group addr
Vlan230     43  100    Acti     local            unknown   172.20.23.1    (conf)
HQ-ST-5K2#
HQ-ST-5K2# sh run int vlan 230
 
. . .
 
interface Vlan230
description NFS_172.20.23.0/25
no shutdown
ip address 172.20.23.3/25
hsrp 43
ip 172.20.23.1
 
HQ-ST-5K2#

The two 5500 switches were a vPC pair, and I had connectivity on the VLAN between them. The vPC peering looked fine.

I looked at debugs on the HSRP engine packets, and noticed that while both devices were sending out hello packets, neither device was receiving the other device’s hello packets.

I saw results like these:

HQ-ST-5K1# deb hsrp engine pack hello

2016 Aug  2 18:30:19.637063 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: Hello out Active pri 100 ip 172.20.23.1
2016 Aug  2 18:30:19.637443 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: hel 3 hol 10 auth cisco
2016 Aug  2 18:30:22.637064 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: Hello out Active pri 100 ip 172.20.23.1
2016 Aug  2 18:30:22.637446 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: hel 3 hol 10 auth cisco
2016 Aug  2 18:30:25.637078 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: Hello out Active pri 100 ip 172.20.23.1
2016 Aug  2 18:30:25.637819 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: hel 3 hol 10 auth cisco
2016 Aug  2 18:30:28.636996 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: Hello out Active pri 100 ip 172.20.23.1
2016 Aug  2 18:30:28.637376 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: hel 3 hol 10 auth cisco

I also checked the status of the forwarding engine on the Nexus 5500s with the show module command.

HQ-ST-5K1# show module

Mod Ports Module-Type                         Model                  Status
--- ----- ----------------------------------- ---------------------- ------------
1   32    O2 32X10GE/Modular Universal Platfo N5K-C5548UP-SUP        active *
2   16    O2 16X10GE Ethernet Module          N55-M16P               ok
3   0     O2 Daughter Card with L3 ASIC       N55-D160L3-V2          offline

Mod  Sw              Hw      World-Wide-Name(s) (WWN)
---  --------------  ------  ----------------------------------------------------
1    6.0(2)N1(2)     1.0     --
2    6.0(2)N1(2)     1.0     --
3    6.0(2)N1(2)     1.0     --
 
. . .
 
HQ-ST-5K2#

Hmm – I saw that the Layer 3 forwarding card for both Nexus 5500s was offline.

I did some searching on the Internet. I saw a mention on the Cisco Licensing guidelines here:

‘When you configure HSRP in a virtual port channel (vPC) on the Nexus 6000 platform without installing the LAN_BASE_SERVICES_PKG license, it sends an HSRP hello message to the link local multicast address and enables the Active-Active state.’ 

This seemed like it was possibly the same issue with the Nexus 5500s. The Layer 3 forwarding card really should be online.

I checked the state of the licenses on both of the Nexus 5500s with the show license command.

HQ-ST-5K1# sh license

HQ-ST-5K1#
 
. . .
 
HQ-ST-5K2# sh license
HQ-ST-5K2#

Neither of the Nexus 5500s has an installed license. So assuming the root cause was a missing LAN_Base license, I worked through the process to obtain, load, and install the LAN_Base license. (For the process, please review my recent blog post on “Adding a License File to a Cisco Nexus 5500 Switch.”)

After installing the licenses, I found that HSRP worked properly and the Layer 3 forwarding engine was online.

HQ-ST-5K1# sh mod
Mod Ports Module-Type                         Model                  Status
--- ----- ----------------------------------- ---------------------- ------------
1   32    O2 32X10GE/Modular Universal Platfo N5K-C5548UP-SUP        active *
2   16    O2 16X10GE Ethernet Module          N55-M16P               ok
3   0     O2 Daughter Card with L3 ASIC       N55-D160L3-V2          ok
 
Mod  Sw              Hw      World-Wide-Name(s) (WWN)
---  --------------  ------  ----------------------------------------------------
1    6.0(2)N1(2)     1.0     --
2    6.0(2)N1(2)     1.0     --
3    6.0(2)N1(2)     1.0     --

. . .
HQ-ST-5K1#
HQ-ST-5K1# sh hsrp brie
P indicates configured to preempt.
|
Interface   Grp Prio P State    Active addr      Standby addr     Group addr
Vlan230    43  110  P Active   local            172.20.23.3     172.20.23.1    (conf)
HQ-ST-5K1#
 
HQ-ST-5K2# sh hsrp brie
P indicates configured to preempt.
|
Interface   Grp Prio P State    Active addr      Standby addr     Group addr
Vlan2430    43  100    Standby  172.20.243.2     local            172.20.243.1    (conf)
HQ-ST-5K2#
HQ-ST-5K2# sh mod
Mod Ports Module-Type                         Model                  Status
--- ----- ----------------------------------- ---------------------- ------------
1   32    O2 32X10GE/Modular Universal Platfo N5K-C5548UP-SUP        active *
2   16    O2 16X10GE Ethernet Module          N55-M16P               ok
3   0     O2 Daughter Card with L3 ASIC       N55-D160L3-V2          ok

. . .
HQ-ST-5K2

The debug results also showed the inbound hellos.


HQ-ST-5K1# deb hsrp engine pack hello
2016 Aug  4 17:49:40.340104 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: Hello out Active pri 110 ip 172.20.23.1
2016 Aug  4 17:49:40.340469 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: hel 3 hol 10 auth cisco
2016 Aug  4 17:49:40.342102 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: Hello in from 172.20.23.3 State Standby pri 100 ip 172.20.23.1
2016 Aug  4 17:49:40.342475 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: hel 3 hol 10 auth cisco
2016 Aug  4 17:49:43.341535 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: Hello in from 172.20.23.3 State Standby pri 100 ip 172.20.23.1
2016 Aug  4 17:49:43.341896 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: hel 3 hol 10 auth cisco
2016 Aug  5 17:49:43.343839 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: Hello out Active pri 110 ip 172.20.23.1
2016 Aug  4 17:49:46.347831 hsrp: Vlan230[43/V4]: Hello in from 172.20.23.3 State Standby pri 100 ip 172.20.23.1
HQ-ST-5K1# un all

The Nexus 5500 pair had worked great for over a year until we needed HSRP. Then we needed to install the appropriate license.

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