You might try getting LACP to work with another Avaya (formerly Nortel) switch… not even sure that the 8300 supports LACP.

I tried changing the lacp timeout from long to short at the port level, also changing the lacp mode from active to passive on both sides doing active-passive combination but nothing happend. It seems like the Nortel 8310 is not sending any lacp PDU.

Hi Michael,

I see that i can change the timers values, but i did not find how to change timers form slow to fast as you mention. Any help is welcome.

Also this is the info from the Cisco, it says that it is sending PDUs but not receiving:

sh lacp interface eth 1/1
Interface Ethernet1/1 is suspended
Channel group is 98 port channel is Po98
PDUs sent: 2305
PDUs rcvd: 0
Markers sent: 0
Markers rcvd: 0
Marker response sent: 0
Marker response rcvd: 0
Unknown packets rcvd: 0
Illegal packets rcvd: 0
Lag Id: [ [(0, 0-0-0-0-0-0, 0, 0, 0), (0, 0-0-0-0-0-0, 0, 0, 0)] ]
Operational as aggregated link since Wed Dec 31 20:00:00 1969

Local Port: Eth1/1 MAC Address= 0-a2-ee-ac-86-19
System Identifier=0x8000, Port Identifier=0x8000,0x101
Operational key=32866
LACP_Activity=passive
LACP_Timeout=Long Timeout (30s)
Synchronization=NOT_IN_SYNC
Collecting=false
Distributing=false
Partner information refresh timeout=Long Timeout (90s)
Actor Admin State=68
Actor Oper State=68
Neighbor: 0x0
MAC Address= 0-0-0-0-0-0
System Identifier=0x0, Port Identifier=0x0,0x0
Operational key=0
LACP_Activity=unknown
LACP_Timeout=Long Timeout (30s)
Synchronization=NOT_IN_SYNC
Collecting=false
Distributing=false
Partner Admin State=0
Partner Oper State=0
Aggregate or Individual(True=1)= 2

Have you tried changing the LACP timers from slow to fast?

Hi Michael,

Your posts are very helpfull. I having problems configurig a etherchanel between a Cisco Nexus Switch and a 8310 Nortel. I follow this guiance but i coulnt bring on the LACP. The Cisco switch says that it is not receiving any LACP PDUs. I enable lacp at the interface label on Nortel 8310 but not globally.

This is the Nortel config and show command

!Configure LACP
!
config ethernet 1/11 perform-tagging enable
config ethernet 1/11 lacp key 11
config ethernet 1/11 lacp aggregation tru
config ethernet 1/11 lacp enable

!
!Create vlan
!

config vlan 1032 create byport 1
config vlan 1032 ports add 1/11 member portmember

!
!Configure mlt group
!

config mlt 3 create
config mlt 3 lacp key 11
config mlt 3 lacp enable
!
8310:5#sh mlt info 3

================================================================================
Mlt Info
================================================================================
MLT PORT MLT MLT PORT DESIGNATED LACP LACP VLAN
ID IFINDEX NAME TYPE ADMIN CURRENT MEMBERS NT-STG PORT ADMIN OPER IDS
——————————————————————————–
3 6146 MLT-3 access norm norm disable null enable down

8310:5# config ethernet 1/11 lacp info

Sub-Context: clear config monitor show test trace
Current Context:

port : 1/11
aggr-wait-time : 2000
aggregation : true
lacp : enabled
fast-periodic-time : 1000
key : 11 (default: 1098)
mode : active
partner-key : 0
partner-port : 0
partner-port-priority : 0
partner-state : 0x0
partner-system-id : 00:00:00:00:00:00
partner-system-priority : 0
port-priority : 32768
slow-periodic-time : 30000
system-priority : 32768
timeout : long
timeout-scale : 3

Hi Philippe,

It should work, you might need a few tweaks.

Good Luck!

You’ll get the hang of it eventually… Avaya, Aruba, Brocade, Cisco, Juniper, etc.. are pretty much all the same just different syntax and ways to approach the same problem.

Good Luck!

Looking forward to your tutorials, hoping that you will post more especially in Avaya networks, I’m still getting confused with the command line of Avaya compare to a Cisco device.

Cheers
Thanks

Hi Andyj,

Sure, just remove the LACP key and your done.

Cheers!

Thanks Michael, I have now successfully configured LACP on my ERS 5698, is it as easy to completely remove any LACP config from those configured ports

They are identical to the steps outlined above for the Ethernet Switch 470.

Good Luck!

You can use either JDM/EDM or the CLI interface to configuration an LACP trunk.

Good Luck!

I’m trying to build a LACP trunk between a 8600 and a linux machine. On the linux machine I’m running this configuration:

auto bond0
iface bond0 inet static
address 172.31.3.176
gateway 172.31.3.254
netmask 255.255.255.0
dns-nameservers 192.168.69.2
bond-slaves eth0 eth1
bond-primary eth0
bond-mode 4
bond-miimon 100
bond-lacp_rate 1

on the passport I tried to create a trunk ( with JDM ) with the two ports where the linux machine is connected, but I see no LACP related options to configure. If I remove the trunk and go to each of the two individual ports and enable LACP it also doesnt work.

Can this trunk be created using JDM or I will need to go to CLI?

thanks!
Pedro

Hi Stefan,

On the stackable Avaya switches the LACP LAGs will start at the last available MLT, usually MLT ID 32 and work back towards 1.

The first LACP LAG you create will utilize MLT ID 32 (assuming that you haven’t already utilized that MLT), if so it will use the next available MLT ID wording toward 1.

Cheers!

Do you know if there is any logic to what MLT-id the LACP configuration takes? I have done this on a 5530 and it looks like it uses the last MLT-id (32). In your example it looks like it is using the last one too (MLT-id 6).

I did try configuring a MLT on MLT-id 32 and then a different LACP LAG and it used MLT-id 31.

I am wondering if this can be configured, so that you can choose what MLT-id the LACP aggregation configuration will take.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Stefan
@exactnetworks

Our H3C’s to the nexus’ use a single bridge aggregation group split between the 2 nexus core switches with a single vpc handling the logic and is working well.

Thanks for the feedback Paul.

I’m curious to better understand the scenario… did you have other QoS tagged traffic in the network that was preempting the Linux server traffic?

The only time I’ve seen this scenario is when the TX or RX devices can’t keep up with each other and expect the network to buffer the overflow.

Cheers!

I thought I would update you with the issues I had experienced….

Firstly the issue with VLACP not disabling the ports correctly wasn’t the problem per-se. It was a bug with SMLT. Even though there was only 1 port used from each 5650TD for the connection to a stack of 4548GT’s ( we preconfigured spare ports in the SMLT for diagnostic purposes) the status did not drop from splitMLT to normalMLT so even though the port was ‘down’ the 5650TD IST member was still trying to use it! Do remember that it intermittently failed – it wasn’t a complete failure so many times it would work OK.

The fix was to reconfigured the SMLT for an SLT and all works perfectly now! We have been told to wait for 6.2.5 release but we have no release notes to confirm/deny until the code is available.

The second issue we had was a Linux server employing a SMLT as it does use four 1 gigabit Ethernet ports suffering data loss. The service was transferring a considerable amount of data which highlighted this condition. We initially thought it was an IST issue, or due to edge stacks losing connectivity to the VMware ESX hosts. We even tried to change the configuration to use local MLT’s on each core switch and migrating to LACP instead – all with varying degrees of failure. It turns out that a unique ‘feature’ of the 56XX series that although is performs well, it also allows data loss. Loss of packet streams under backup conditions, loss of LACPDU’s etc.

The fix was to provide the following statement and a reboot…..

“qos agent buffer lossless”

The default employed “qos agent queue-set 2” already – so this didn’t need to be set!

Now we get perfect data transfers and no errors!

Please use the following URL which explains these settings in an iSCSI environment

http://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100123892

Many thanks PAH

Hi Paul,

This question is probably better suited for the discussion forums but since you posted here I’ll do my best to provide a worthy reply.

What software versions are you running on the ERS 4548s and on the ERS 5650s?

VLACP is essentially a heartbeat protocol, if the far side doesn’t see the heartbeat is marks the interface as unavailable (the port still stays up). There have been more than a few issues with VLACP so the software release you are running is going to play a big part in this problem.

What are your timers are you using on the VLACP configurations? Long timers, short timers, 30 seconds, 500ms, retries?

How would I go about simulating a failure? What’s providing your L2 extensions? Just unplug the fiber (WAN) link to that piece of equipment, you should still have link to your switch port because the “MUX” is still running but it’s essentially had a fiber break (you unplugged it).

Good Luck!