Cisco LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol)

Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) is a vendor-neutral data link layer protocol defined in IEEE standard 802.1AB. Just like Cisco’s CDP, LLDP is used by network devices to advertise their identity, capabilities, and neighbors on a local Ethernet network. However, since LLDP is an open standard, it has one big advantage over CDP – it can be used on non-Cisco devices.

Cisco LLDP neighbor discovery protocol is disabled by default on Cisco devices. To enable LLDP globally, use the lldp run command in the config mode:

R1(config)#lldp run

 

To display information about the LLDP neighbors, run the show lldp neighbors command:

R1#show lldp neighbors
Capability codes:
    (R) Router, (B) Bridge, (T) Telephone, (C) DOCSIS Cable Device
    (W) WLAN Access Point, (P) Repeater, (S) Station, (O) Other
Device ID           Local Intf     Hold-time  Capability      Port ID
R2                  Gig0/0         120        R               Gig0/0

Total entries displayed: 1

 

As you can see from the output above, R1 has a single neighbor. Here is the description of the fields in the output:

  • Device ID – the neighbor’s host name
  • Local Intf – the local device interface on which the neighbor is connected to
  • Hold-time – the LLDP timer in which the receiving device should hold the information sent by this device before discarding it.
  • Capability – the type of the device. R means router, T means telephone, etc.
  • Port ID – neighboring device’s interface

 

To get more detailed information about LLDP neighbors, run the show lldp neighbors detail command:

R1#show lldp neighbors detail 
------------------------------------------------
Chassis id: 0002.4A13.6C01
Port id: Gig0/0
Port Description: GigabitEthernet0/0
System Name: R2
System Description:
Cisco IOS Software, C1900 Software (C1900-UNIVERSALK9-M), Version 15.1(4)M4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2012 by Cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Thurs 5-Jan-12 15:41 by pt_team
Time remaining: 90 seconds
System Capabilities: R
Enabled Capabilities: R
Management Addresses - not advertised
Auto Negotiation - supported, enabled
Physical media capabilities:
1000baseT(FD)
100baseT(FD)
Media Attachment Unit type: 10
Vlan ID: 1

Total entries displayed: 1
NOTE
To get information about a specific neighbor, run the show lldp entry DEVICE_ID command.

 

To display global LLDP information, run the show lldp command:

R2#show lldp
Global LLDP Information:
Status: ACTIVE
LLDP advertisements are sent every 30 seconds
LLDP hold time advertised is 120 seconds
LLDP interface reinitialisation delay is 2 seconds

 

This command displays information about whether LLDP is active on the device, the frequency of LLDP updates and transmissions, the hold time for the packets being sent, and the delay time for LLDP to initialize on an interface.

You can also configure whether you would globally disable LLDP or would like your device to send LLDP packets and receive them on a particular interface using the no lldp transmit and no lldp receive interface mode commands. For example, to only receive LLDP packets on the Gi0/0 interface, I would use the following LLDP configuration to disable LLDP:

R1(config-if)#no lldp transmit

Download our Free CCNA Study Guide PDF for complete notes on all the CCNA 200-301 exam topics in one book.

We recommend the Cisco CCNA Gold Bootcamp as your main CCNA training course. It’s the highest rated Cisco course online with an average rating of 4.8 from over 30,000 public reviews and is the gold standard in CCNA training: