3300 Mxe Communications Director stops

[Lee]

My 3300 Mxe Communications Director will only allow me to connect through the network one time, right after I reboot. Any further attempt to log on, Internet Explorer can not display the page. I have to do a hard system reset to accomplish a reboot, then I will be able to log on, one time. I have watched the service techs connect though the maintenance port to the Communications Director.
1. Any idea what I need to do to fix my Communications Director?
2. How do I set up a laptop as a backup to connect through the communications port?

[Dutch]

Never heard of that before but in order to approach a possibility...

After you are unable to reach the page can you still ping the PBX? I assume phones work normally?

1.
Do the switches handle tagging or does the Mitel do this. The first I would say is recommended but that aside if VLAN is done by the switch the vlan should be disabled on the Mitel.

2.
If you connect your laptop to the MXe's secondary LAN port can you then connect? (This can be done after the MXe is booted since its not active right away. Also the Layer 2 switch in the IP options should been have given an IP but I assume most techs configure that by default.

3.
I think have only experienced once the webserver needed a restart which you can do through VXworks shell. I think it had to do with a bug with the software but I can not really remember.

4.
Use your laptops COM port and connect. For me default values work in PuTTY as far as I know.


But all this aside have you contacted your Mitel's service provider for this issue? They should be able to help you with this if you have a SLA with them??

[Lee]

Ping to the PBX results in destination unreachable. All phones and imbedded voicemail working fine.
1. Talked to our IT guy about tagging, he is not sure and neither am I. I am researching this more.
2. I can not log on using my laptop and the Mxe's secondary LAN port.
3. ...
4. Downloaded and installed PuTTY on the laptop. Do I use a USB to serial converter for the connection to the Mxe's maintenance port? If so, PuTTY screen just comes up blank with a curser. Set it to 9600 baud, Data bits - 8, Parity - None, Stop bits - 1, Flow control - None.

Bad news is I'm in between service providers. The one I was using for the last 20 years went out of business and the company who bought the assets raised the hourly rate 148%. Still waiting for other local service providers to submit terms for a new agreement.

[x-man]

Its probably the network port failing. Known fault. Only known cure is a new 3300. Lots of stuff about this failure mode on here. You can do something with   the MIPS timer to help you until you can replace the controller if its thsi fault.

[lundah]

Yes, to connect to the serial port it's 9600 8N1. puTTY should work with a USB-Serial converter, but you have to make sure you select the correct COM port which will vary depending on the USB port the converter is connected to. I like using TeraTerm for serial, as it auto-detects the COM port for me.

It could be a bad MIPS processor as x-man suggested, which is the chip that controls the Ethernet ports. If you are able to get in to a console connection, try issuing "mips_reset" from the shell prompt ("->"). If that brings it back, that's probably your problem. The only fix for that is to replace the controller chassis.

[VinceWhirlwind]

If your phones are working fine (unless they are registered to a backup 3300 somewhere) then your network port is OK.
 
Either you are trying to connect your laptop directly to the 3300 which is configured for VLAN tagging (and your laptop NIC is unlikely to support 802.1q frame format, ie, it can't do tagging) so it can't connect, or you have IP addressing issues involving the subnet you are in, the default GWs of the devices, and/or the routing table of the device that is acting as default GW.
 
How are you connecting your laptop to the 3300?
 - physically
 - logically (ie, IP addresses and default GWs of both devices)
 
When the 3300 reboots, it initially comes up as an untagged VLAN, then it resets itself and tags the VLAN on its interface. Having the 3300 VLAN as tagged seems to be the Mitel recommended configuration, but I can't for the life of me understand why.
Whichever configuration you go with, the Mitel interface needs to be set the same as the switch interface it is patched to (either tagged or untagged). The switch interface needs to be tagged/untagged in the correct VLAN for the subnet that is configured on the 3300.
 

 

[Lee]

The phones are working fine because they are not network phones. I'm running A SX-200 w/2 digital and 6 ons/bons line cards and a Universal ASU.

I think I have tried to connect the laptop both physically and logically using the 3300's maintenance port and the secondary Lan port. What do you mean by default GW? Any attempt to connect through the LAN results in an IE "Cannot Display Page". Connection through the maintenance port, PuTTY screen just comes up blank with a curser. Am I missing a step?

[VinceWhirlwind]

Ah, not IP phones, I see.
 
You say you can see the 3300 IP address momentarily following a reboot - this is when it comes up untagged, then it tags itself. To get onto it, you need to connect the 3300 interface to a switchport that is tagged the same.
Then put another switchport in the same VLAN untagged, patch your laptop to it, give your laptop an IP address in the same subnet.
 
When you console onto the 3300, you can do an ifShow to get its IP settings, but I have no idea how to find out which VLAN it is tagged for. Maybe there is a default?

[johnp]

Have you tried the vlan_off command?

[Lee]

Thanks to every one for their input. This problem cleared itself after placing a network switch just before the 3300 and a reboot command through the maintenance port. The network switch has been removed and all connections are back to their original setup. I can access the Mitel Communications Director from any PC on the network that is setup correctly.