On Jan 22, 2010, at 6:23 AM, Paul Marsh wrote:
> I'm trying to help out a non-profit with a wiring closet mess. We need
> to figure out what ports go to what offices. Rather than toning each
> port out couldn't wireshark help? I was thinking if each workstation
> was configured to spit out specific packets I could sniff each port on
> the switch to see what workstation belonged to which port. Any ideas?
If they are Cisco switches, use the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP). There are a few programs out there that will listen and report what CDP frames they receive. Wireshark can of course also do that (just use the filter "cdp" - Cisco devices send a CDP frame out right away after connecting to the port and every 60s by default). Other vendors may be using the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP). This should yield similar results.
Steve