Configuring Mac Address Table Aging Time - Alcatel OmniSwitch 6624 Network Configuration Manual

Configuring MAC Address Table Aging Time

Configuring MAC Address Table Aging Time
Source learning also tracks MAC address age and removes addresses from the MAC address table that
have aged beyond the aging timer value. When a device stops sending packets, source learning keeps track
of how much time has passed since the last packet was received on the device's switch port. When this
amount of time exceeds the aging time value, the MAC is aged out of the MAC address table. Source
learning always starts tracking MAC address age from the time since the last packet was received.
By default, the aging time is set to 300 seconds (5 minutes) and is configured on a per VLAN basis using
the mac-address-table aging-time
255 to 1200 seconds (20 minutes):
-> mac-address-table aging-time 1200 vlan 255
A MAC address learned on a VLAN 255 port will age out if the time since a packet with that address was
last seen on the port exceeds 1200 seconds. If a VLAN ID is not specified, then the aging time value is
applied to all VLANs configured on the switch.
When using the mac-address-table aging-time command in a switch configuration file (e.g., boot.cfg),
include an instance of this command specifying the VLAN ID for each VLAN configured on the switch.
This is necessary even if all VLANs will have the same aging time value. If there is only one instance of
this command in the configuration file and it does not specify a VLAN ID, the aging time value is applied
only to VLAN 1.
Note. The MAC address table aging time is also used as the timeout value for the Address Resolution
Protocol (ARP) table. This timeout value determines how long the switch retains dynamically learned
ARP table entries. See
To set the aging time back to the default value, use the no form of the mac-address-table aging-time
command. For example, the following sets the aging time for VLAN 255 (for all VLANs if VLAN ID is
not specified) back to the default of 300 seconds:
-> no mac-address-table aging-time vlan 255
To display the aging time value for one or all VLANs, use the
command. For more information about this command, see the OmniSwitch CLI Reference Guide.
page 2-6
command. For example, the following sets the aging time for VLAN
Chapter 12, "Configuring IP,"
OmniSwitch 6624/6648 Network Configuration Guide
for more information.
show mac-address-table aging-time
Managing Source Learning
April 2004