Nortel 4548GT switches

Valentine subcluster switches (Nortel 4548GT)

The 4500 series Nortel switches are different from all others. A few hints:

• The serial port setting is 9600 8N1 with NO flow control
• Before the serial port will work, the dip switch on the back of the unit MUST be set to "BASE". If it is set to "Unit select" you will never get any reasonable response out of the serial port!
• Configuration of the unit, except for its own IP address, initally proceeds ONLY over the IP interfaces, NOT the serial console. However, starting the QuickConfiguration utility and then interrupting it with ^C gets you to a reasonable state. Use ^Y again to enter the console mode.

• The documentation for the 4547GT Nortel switches is at http://support.nortel.com/go/main.jsp?cscat=DOCUMENTATION&poid=18122

Net conclusion: avoid these switches if you can, since their config options are weird and nonstandard, and documentation is ... well, what about documentation?!

What You Should See

4548GT>
Exec commands:
 enable    Turn on privileged commands
 exit      Exit from the EXEC
 help      Description of the interactive help system
 logout    Exit from the EXEC and end the current session
 ping      Send echo messages
 show      Show running system information
 telnet    Telnet to another host
 terminal  Set terminal line parameters

Proposed Configuration

Configure trunk using LACP, and run both VLAN 9 and VLAN 4 tagged over this trunk. The management interface of the switch can be assigned to VLAN4 and then configured with the ip address of the switch using:

vlan mgmt 4
ip address 172.20.X.Y
ip address netmask 255.255.0.0
ip default-gateway 172.20.255.254