Udld Operation - Cisco 500 Series Administration Manual

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UDLD Operation

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All connected devices must support UDLD for the protocol to successfully detect
unidirectional links. If only the local device supports UDLD, it is not possible for the
device to detect the status of the link. In this case, the status of the link is set to
undetermined. The user can configure whether ports in the undetermined state
are shut down or merely trigger notifications.
UDLD States and Modes
Under the UDLD protocol, ports are assigned the following states:
• Detection—System is attempting to determine whether the link is
bidirectional or unidirectional. This is a temporary state.
• Bidirectional—Traffic sent by a local device is known to be received by its
neighbor, and traffic from the neighbor is received by the local device.
• Shutdown—The link is unidirectional. Traffic sent by a local device is
received by its neighbor, but traffic from the neighbor is not received by the
local device.
• Undetermined—The system cannot determine the state of the port,
because one of the following is occurring:
- The neighbor does not support UDLD.
or
- The neighbor does not receive traffic from the local device.
The UDLD action in this case depends on the UDLD mode of the device as
explained below.
UDLD supports the following modes of operation:
• Normal
If the link state of the port is determined to be bi-directional and the UDLD
information times out while the link on the port is still up, UDLD tries to re-
establish the state of the port.
Port Management: Unidirectional Link Detection
Cisco 500 Series Stackable Managed Switch Administration Guide
UDLD Operation