Lessons · Network switches · the ticket and the window
The serials are the part nobody can reconstruct
A ticket has two audiences: the people whose ports go dark tonight, and whoever opens this closet in six months wondering what changed.
Hone is a place to practise programming. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
The configuration is already on the switch and on the server. What is nowhere is which box went in, and what you checked before you left.
How to think about it
Read the serial and model off the new switch while you are standing in front of it, and write down what you verified in the same breath.
Worked example
enableIn.
show inventoryThe chassis, its part number and its serial.
show version | include serialThe same serial, from the other direction. This is the number the warranty is raised against.
show version | include ModelAnd the model, which is what the asset register wants.
show vlan briefWhat you verified, in a form you can paste.
show interfaces statusAnd the other half of it.
Your turn
Read the chassis, part number and serial off the box.
show
Console into a switch
The trap
Writing 'replaced switch in closet 3'. True, and useless: it is missing the only two facts nobody can work out later.