Configuring Extended Port Description

ExtremeXOS provides a configurable per-port “display-string” parameter that is displayed on each of the show port CLI commands, exposed through the SNMP ifAlias element, and accessible via the XML port.xsd API. This existing field is enhanced to allow up to 255 characters with much less stringent syntax limitations. Some characters are still not permitted, as they have special meanings. These characters include the following: <, >, ?, &. This new field is accessible through the show port info detail command, and is also accessible through the SNMP ifAlias object of IfXTable from IF-MIB (RFC 2233), and the XML API.

You can always configure a 255-character-long string regardless of the configured value of ifAlias size. Its value only affects the SNMP behavior.

Use the following commands to configure up to 255 characters associated with a port:

config port port_list description-string string

Use the following command to unconfigure the description-string setting:

unconfig port port_list description-string

Use the following command to control the accessible string size (default 64, per MIB) for the SNMP ifAlias object:

config snmp ifmib ifalias size [default | extended]

If you choose extended size option, the following warning will be displayed:

Warning: Changing the size to [extended] requires the use of increased 255 chars long ifAlias object of ifXtable from IF-MIB(RFC 2233)