IP Device TrackingNEW!

IP Device Tracking enables the switch to send periodic ARP probes to devices learned in the nodealias table on a per-port basis. Use this feature to keep NetLogin authentication sessions active for devices that generate minimal traffic and would otherwise be disconnected by idle timeout.

When a device responds to an ARP probe, the switch resets the NetLogin inactivity timer for that session. When a device fails to respond to a configurable number of consecutive probes, the switch marks that device Inactive. IP Device Tracking operates on ARP traffic only and applies to directly connected Layer 2 devices.

Note

IP Device Tracking must be configured independently on each LAG member port.

Device Status Values

Each nodealias entry on a port with IP Device Tracking configured is assigned one of the following status values:

Active—The port has IP Device Tracking enabled and the device responded to an ARP probe.
Inactive—The port has IP Device Tracking enabled and the device has not responded to consecutive ARP probes equal to the configured max-failures value.
Not Tracked—IP Device Tracking is disabled on the port. No ARP probes are sent.

ARP Probe Parameters

The following parameters control ARP probe behavior and are configurable per port:

max-failures—Number of consecutive probe failures before the device status changes from Active to Inactive. Range: 1–10. Default: 3.
interval—Time in seconds between ARP probes. Range: 30–3600. Default: 60.
initial-delay—Time in seconds the switch waits before sending the first ARP probe after a device is detected or a link comes up. A value of 0 causes probing to begin immediately. Range: 0–3600. Default: 10.
ipaddress—Sender IP address used in ARP probe packets. Default: 0.0.0.0.

Note

ARP probe parameters can be configured whether IP Device Tracking is on or off, allowing parameters to be staged before the feature is enabled.

Enabling and Disabling IP Device Tracking

To enable or disable IP Device Tracking on one or more ports:

configure nodealias ports ip-device-tracking

Setting the port to off (default) stops ARP probing and sets all devices on that port to Not Tracked.

Configuring ARP Probe Parameters

To configure ARP probe parameters on one or more ports. Specify one or more parameters in any order in a single command:

configure nodealias ports ip-device-tracking arp-probe

The following example configures port 7 with a 50-second probe interval, 3-second initial delay, sender IP 20.0.0.1, and a maximum of 4 consecutive failures:

configure nodealias ports 7 ip-device-tracking arp-probe interval 50 initial-delay 3 ipaddress 20.0.0.1 max-failures 4

Displaying IP Device Tracking Status

To display the IP Device Tracking status of nodealias entries, optionally filtered by port:

show nodealias ip-device-tracking

Port   MAC Address          Alias ID  Time Last Learned    VID   Protocol  Source IP        Status
-----  -----------------  ----------  -------------------  ----  --------  ---------------  -----------
7      00:00:c0:01:0b:07          15  11-20-2025 16:59:45  10    ARP       20.0.0.15        Active
7      00:00:c0:01:0b:02          10  11-20-2025 16:59:13  10    ARP       20.0.0.10        Inactive
8      00:00:c0:01:0b:14          28  11-20-2025 17:00:14  10    ARP       20.0.0.28        Not Tracked

To display the ARP probe configuration for all ports, optionally filtered by port:

show nodealias ip-device-tracking configuration

Port    IP Device       Max     Probe  Initial  Probe
        Tracking   Failures  Interval    Delay  Sender IP
------  ---------  --------  --------  -------  ---------------
2       On                3        30       10  20.0.0.1
7       On                4        50        3  20.0.0.1
8       Off               3        60       10  0.0.0.0

Supported Platforms

All platforms.