Sometimes you just have to push through the mountain of problems. Another Subcon requested for a joint testing and commissioning session. They have arranged for the appropriate people to be present for this 1 am activity.
I turned up, but the door to the network room was locked. Nobody has the key. We can’t draw the key as it is still a construction site and nobody put in the paperwork.
After some roundabout way, we got the door opened. Another roadblock, the rack was locked and I don’t have the key. So now we dig up the PM for the rack out of bed. Finally after a 2-hour wait, “Open Sesame”.
With the rack doors opened and the router was visible and powered on. The LEDs for the E1 link were dark. I plugged in the E1 cable into the router, that was configured and security vetted. and told my opposite number to jumper it. The dark LEDs of the E1 card nagged at me. Logged in to the router, in the config was a line “define card type”. A “show interface” revealed only Gigabit interfaces.
I feel like killing somebody. Googled for the configuration guide for the E1 card. Specified the type of card, but still no Serial Interface. Restarted, still nothing. Compared against other routers, turns out I need to config the E1 controller. Once that is done the rest was smooth sailing.