The Dell OS10 Switch must enable Far-End Failure Detection (FEFD) to protect against one-way connections.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-269965	SRG-NET-000512-L2S-000004	OS10-L2S-000190	SV-269965r1052281_rule	2024-12-11	1

Description
In topologies where fiber-optic interconnections are used, physical misconnections can occur that allow a link to appear to be up when there is a mismatched set of transmit/receive pairs. When such a physical misconfiguration occurs, protocols such as STP can cause network instability. UDLD is a Layer 2 protocol that can detect these physical misconfigurations by verifying that traffic is flowing bidirectionally between neighbors. Ports with UDLD enabled periodically transmit packets to neighbor devices. If the packets are not echoed back within a specific time frame, the link is flagged as unidirectional and the interface is shut down.

Description

In topologies where fiber-optic interconnections are used, physical misconnections can occur that allow a link to appear to be up when there is a mismatched set of transmit/receive pairs. When such a physical misconfiguration occurs, protocols such as STP can cause network instability. UDLD is a Layer 2 protocol that can detect these physical misconfigurations by verifying that traffic is flowing bidirectionally between neighbors. Ports with UDLD enabled periodically transmit packets to neighbor devices. If the packets are not echoed back within a specific time frame, the link is flagged as unidirectional and the interface is shut down.

ℹ️ Check
Dell OS10 provides a proprietary protocol, FEFD, to protect against one-way connections. Verify that FEFD is configured on the appropriate ethernet interfaces by reviewing the FEFD status to verify the desired interfaces are in mode Normal or Aggressive. OS10# show fefd FEFD is globally 'OFF', interval is 15 seconds. INTERFACE MODE INTERVAL STATE ============================================================ eth1/1/1 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/2 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/3 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/4 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/5 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/6 Normal 15 Unknown eth1/1/7 Aggressive 15 Unknown eth1/1/8 NA NA Idle (Not running) … If FEFD is not configured on the appropriate interfaces, this is a finding.

ℹ️ Check

Dell OS10 provides a proprietary protocol, FEFD, to protect against one-way connections. Verify that FEFD is configured on the appropriate ethernet interfaces by reviewing the FEFD status to verify the desired interfaces are in mode Normal or Aggressive. OS10# show fefd FEFD is globally 'OFF', interval is 15 seconds. INTERFACE MODE INTERVAL STATE ============================================================ eth1/1/1 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/2 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/3 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/4 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/5 NA NA Idle (Not running) eth1/1/6 Normal 15 Unknown eth1/1/7 Aggressive 15 Unknown eth1/1/8 NA NA Idle (Not running) … If FEFD is not configured on the appropriate interfaces, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure the OS10 switch to enable FEFD on appropriate interfaces connected to other OS10 peers. OS10(config)# interface ethernet 1/1/6 OS10(conf-if-eth1/1/6)# fefd mode normal