UDLD

The Unidirectional Link Detection (UDLD) protocol enables detection of unidirectional behavior of layer 2 link. For UDLD to work, both connected devices must run the same UDLD protocol on the respective ports.

UDLD monitors the link between two network devices and blocks the ports on both ends of the link if the link fails. UDLD is particularly useful for detecting failures in fiber links and trunks.

In the following example each switch load balances traffic across two ports in a trunk group. Without the UDLD feature, a link failure on a link that is not directly attached to one of the HPE switches remains undetected. As a result, each switch continues to send traffic on the ports connected to the failed link. When UDLD is enabled on the trunk ports on each switch, the switches detect the failed link, block the ports connected to the failed link, and use the remaining ports in the trunk group to forward the traffic.

Similarly, UDLD is effective for monitoring fiber optic links that use two uni-direction fibers to transmit and receive packets. Without UDLD, if a fiber breaks in one direction, a fiber port may assume the link is still good (because the other direction is operating normally) and continue to send traffic on the connected ports. UDLD-enabled ports; however, will prevent traffic from being sent across a bad link by blocking the ports in the event that either the individual transmitter or receiver for that connection fails.

Ports enabled for UDLD exchange health-check packets once every seven seconds (the link-keepalive interval). If a port does not receive a health-check packet from the port at the other end of the link within the keepalive interval, the port waits for four more intervals. If the port still does not receive a health-check packet after waiting for five intervals, the port concludes that the link has failed and blocks the UDLD-enabled port.

When a port is blocked by UDLD, the event is recorded in the switch log and other port blocking protocols, like spanning tree or meshing, will not use the bad link to load balance packets. The port will remain blocked until the link is unplugged, disabled, or fixed. The port can also be unblocked by disabling UDLD on the port.

Port blocking behavior is dependant on the UDLD mode in use. The previous paragraphs describe RFC5171 Aggressive mode. Other modes behave as follows:

  • RFC 5171 normal: The port is not blocked but a notification is triggered.
  • Aruba OS verify-then-forward: The links are considered blocked until bi-directionality is confirmed. After a link is considered bidirectional, if the retries are met and no packets are received, the link is marked as blocked.
  • Aruba OS forward-then-verify: The links start up as unblocked. After a link is considered bidirectional, if the retries are met and no packets are received, the link is marked as blocked.