Michael McNamara

LACP Configuration Examples (Part 7)

Michael McNamara — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 22:55:53 +0000

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working with HP switches so I decided I would extend my series on LACP trunking to include HP switches. In my lab I used HP 2810 switches which are dated but the concepts are the same for any of the newer HPE switch equipment. I cabled the HP switches to a pair of Cisco 2950s, you may noticed that I’ve changed some of the ports I’m using from the previous lab examples (check the diagram).

I noticed while working on setting up this lab that the MST digest between the Cisco and HP switches didn’t match. After some quick research it appears that the Cisco 2950s I have in the lab operate with a pre standard MST operation. Other Cisco switches identify them as such and are interoperable but you may have issues with third-party devices that are expecting the 802.1s standard. You can see both digests from the Cisco 3750 below and they match both the Cisco 2950 and the HP 2810 switches.

C3750-SW1#show spanning-tree mst configuration digest
Name      [AcmeNetworks]
Revision  1     Instances configured 3
Digest          0x6DA4B50C4FD587757EEF0356753605E1
Pre-std Digest  0x421D7D23BF9562A0C35E46CA1BE8A75C

Example Topology

You’ll notice the HP switches at the bottom of the diagram. It was pretty straight forward but here’s what I needed to do.

Cisco Catalyst 2950 Switch 1 & 2

First we needed to configure the ports on the Cisco 2950s that would be connected to the HP switches. I used Port Channel 3 for this and enabled LACP;

interface fas0/15
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 3 mode active

interface fas0/16
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 3 mode active

HP 2810 Switch 1 & 2

Now we need to configure the HP switches, VLANs, IP addressing, ports, trunking, MST, etc;

vlan 100
name "192-168-100-0/24"
vlan 200
name "192-168-200-0/24"

vlan 100
ip address 192.168.100.70 255.255.255.0
exit

spanning-tree
spanning-tree config-name "AcmeNetworks"
spanning-tree config-revision 1
spanning-tree instance 1 vlan 100
spanning-tree instance 2 vlan 200

trunk 1,13 trk1 lacp
trunk 23,24 trk2 lacp

vlan 100 tagged trk1
vlan 200 tagged trk1

vlan 100 tagged trk2
vlan 200 tagged trk2

That’s all well and good but I’m sure you want to see the output… is it working as expected? Well let’s check it out.

Cisco Catalyst 2950 Switch 1

We can see from the data below that LACP has established to the HP switch and Spanning Tree is working as expected;

C2950-SW1#show lacp neighbor
Flags:  S - Device is requesting Slow LACPDUs
        F - Device is requesting Fast LACPDUs
        A - Device is in Active mode       P - Device is in Passive mode

Channel group 1 neighbors

Partner's information:

                  LACP port                        Oper    Port     Port
Port      Flags   Priority  Dev ID         Age     Key     Number   State
Fa0/1     SA      32768     0064.40cf.4d80  24s    0x3     0x102    0x3D
Fa0/2     SA      32768     0064.40cf.4d80  17s    0x3     0x103    0x3D

Channel group 2 neighbors

Partner's information:

                  LACP port                        Oper    Port     Port
Port      Flags   Priority  Dev ID         Age     Key     Number   State
Fa0/31    SA      32768     0018.ba8e.4a40  22s    0x2     0x1F     0x3D
Fa0/33    SA      32768     0018.ba8e.4a40   3s    0x2     0x21     0x3D

Channel group 3 neighbors

Partner's information:

                  LACP port                        Oper    Port     Port
Port      Flags   Priority  Dev ID         Age     Key     Number   State
Fa0/15    SA      0         0026.f1df.f400  21s    0x32    0x18     0x3D
Fa0/16    SA      0         0026.f1df.f400  21s    0x32    0x17     0x3D

C2950-SW1#show spanning-tree

MST00
  Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
  Root ID    Priority    16384
             Address     3475.c732.a400
             Cost        0
             Port        65 (Port-channel1)
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32768  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 0)
             Address     0019.2faa.49c0
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1              Root FWD 100000    128.65   P2p
Po2              Altn BLK 100000    128.66   P2p
Po3              Desg FWD 100000    128.67   P2p Bound(RSTP)


MST01
  Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
  Root ID    Priority    16385
             Address     54e0.322a.d441
             Cost        120000
             Port        65 (Port-channel1)
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32769  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 1)
             Address     0019.2faa.49c0
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1              Root FWD 100000    128.65   P2p
Po2              Altn BLK 100000    128.66   P2p
Po3              Boun FWD 100000    128.67   P2p Bound(RSTP)


MST02
  Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
  Root ID    Priority    16386
             Address     0064.40cf.4d80
             Cost        100000
             Port        65 (Port-channel1)
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32770  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 2)
             Address     0019.2faa.49c0
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1              Root FWD 100000    128.65   P2p
Po2              Altn BLK 100000    128.66   P2p
Po3              Boun FWD 100000    128.67   P2p Bound(RSTP)

C2950-SW1#show spanning-tree mst configuration digest
Name      [AcmeNetworks]
Revision  1
Instance  Vlans mapped
--------  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
0         1-99,101-199,201-4094
1         100
2         200
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest    421D7D23BF9562A0C35E46CA1BE8A75C

Cisco Catalyst 2950 Switch 2

We can see from the data below that LACP has established to the HP switch and Spanning Tree is working as expected;

C2950-SW2#show lacp neighbor
Flags:  S - Device is requesting Slow LACPDUs
        F - Device is requesting Fast LACPDUs
        A - Device is in Active mode       P - Device is in Passive mode
Channel group 1 neighbors

Partner's information:

LACP port Oper Port Port
Port Flags Priority Dev ID Age Key Number State
Fa0/47 SA 32768 0064.40cf.4d80 2s 0x4 0x130 0x3D
Fa0/48 SA 32768 0064.40cf.4d80 25s 0x4 0x131 0x3D

Channel group 2 neighbors

Partner's information:

LACP port Oper Port Port
Port Flags Priority Dev ID Age Key Number State
Fa0/31 SA 32768 0019.2faa.49c0 27s 0x2 0x1F 0x3D
Fa0/33 SA 32768 0019.2faa.49c0 19s 0x2 0x21 0x3D

Channel group 3 neighbors

Partner's information:

LACP port Oper Port Port
Port Flags Priority Dev ID Age Key Number State
Fa0/15 SA 0 0026.f1e1.41a0 29s 0x32 0x17 0x3D
Fa0/16 SA 0 0026.f1e1.41a0 0s 0x32 0x18 0x3D

C2950-SW2#show spanning-tree

MST00
Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
Root ID Priority 16384
Address 3475.c732.a400
Cost 0
Port 65 (Port-channel1)
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 32768 (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 0)
Address 0018.ba8e.4a40
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1 Root FWD 100000 128.65 P2p
Po2 Desg FWD 100000 128.66 P2p
Po3 Desg FWD 100000 128.67 P2p Bound(RSTP)

MST01
Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
Root ID Priority 16385
Address 54e0.322a.d441
Cost 120000
Port 65 (Port-channel1)
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 32769 (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 1)
Address 0018.ba8e.4a40
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1 Root FWD 100000 128.65 P2p
Po2 Desg FWD 100000 128.66 P2p
Po3 Boun FWD 100000 128.67 P2p Bound(RSTP)

MST02
Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
Root ID Priority 16386
Address 0064.40cf.4d80
Cost 100000
Port 65 (Port-channel1)
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 32770 (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 2)
Address 0018.ba8e.4a40
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1 Root FWD 100000 128.65 P2p
Po2 Desg FWD 100000 128.66 P2p
Po3 Boun FWD 100000 128.67 P2p Bound(RSTP)

C2950-SW2# show spanning-tree mst configuration digest
Name [AcmeNetworks]
Revision 1
Instance Vlans mapped
-------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
0 1-99,101-199,201-4094
1 100
2 200
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest 421D7D23BF9562A0C35E46CA1BE8A75C

HP 2810 Switch 1

HP-SW1# show lacp

                           LACP

   PORT   LACP      TRUNK     PORT      LACP      LACP
   NUMB   ENABLED   GROUP     STATUS    PARTNER   STATUS
   ----   -------   -------   -------   -------   -------
   1      Active    Trk1      Up        Yes       Success
   13     Active    Trk1      Up        Yes       Success
   23     Active    Trk2      Up        Yes       Success
   24     Active    Trk2      Up        Yes       Success


HP-SW1# show cdp neighbors

 CDP neighbors information

  Port Device ID                     | Platform                     Capability
  ---- ----------------------------- + ---------------------------- -----------
  1    00 26 f1 e1 41 a0             | ProCurve J9021A Switch 28... S
  13   00 26 f1 e1 41 a0             | ProCurve J9021A Switch 28... S
  23   C2950-SW1                     | Cisco Internetwork Operat... S
  24   C2950-SW1                     | Cisco Internetwork Operat... S

HP-SW1# show spanning-tree

 Multiple Spanning Tree (MST) Information

  STP Enabled   : Yes
  Force Version : MSTP-operation
  IST Mapped VLANs : 1

  Switch MAC Address : 0026f1-dff400
  Switch Priority    : 32768
  Max Age  : 20
  Max Hops : 20
  Forward Delay : 15

  Topology Change Count  : 332
  Time Since Last Change : 53 mins

  CST Root MAC Address : 3475c7-32a400
  CST Root Priority    : 16384
  CST Root Path Cost   : 200000
  CST Root Port        : Trk2

  IST Regional Root MAC Address : 0026f1-dff400
  IST Regional Root Priority    : 32768
  IST Regional Root Path Cost   : 0
  IST Remaining Hops            : 20

  Root Guard Ports :
  TCN Guard Ports  :
  Protected Ports :
  Filtered Ports :

                  |           Prio             | Designated    Hello
  Port  Type      | Cost      rity  State      | Bridge        Time  PtP Edge
  ----- --------- + --------- ----- ---------- + ------------- ----- --- ----
  2     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  3     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  4     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  5     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  6     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  7     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  8     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  9     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  10    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  11    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  12    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  14    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  15    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  16    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  17    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  18    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  19    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  20    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  21    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  22    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  Trk1            | 20000     64    Forwarding | 0026f1-dff400 2     Yes No
  Trk2            | 200000    64    Forwarding | 00192f-aa49c0 2     Yes No

HP-SW1# show spanning-tree instance 1

 MST Instance Information

  Instance ID : 1
  Mapped VLANs : 100

  Switch Priority         : 32768

  Topology Change Count   : 39
  Time Since Last Change  : 53 mins

  Regional Root MAC Address : 0026f1-dff400
  Regional Root Priority    : 32768
  Regional Root Path Cost   : 0
  Regional Root Port        : This switch is root
  Remaining Hops            : 20
                                                           Designated
  Port  Type      Cost      Priority Role       State      Bridge
  ----- --------- --------- -------- ---------- ---------- -------------
  2     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  3     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  4     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  5     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  6     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  7     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  8     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  9     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  10    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  11    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  12    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  14    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  15    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  16    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  17    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  18    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  19    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  20    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  21    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  22    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  Trk1            20000     128      Designated Forwarding 0026f1-dff400
  Trk2            200000    128      Master     Forwarding 0026f1-dff400

HP-SW1# show spanning-tree instance 2

 MST Instance Information

  Instance ID : 2
  Mapped VLANs : 200

  Switch Priority         : 32768

  Topology Change Count   : 38
  Time Since Last Change  : 53 mins

  Regional Root MAC Address : 0026f1-dff400
  Regional Root Priority    : 32768
  Regional Root Path Cost   : 0
  Regional Root Port        : This switch is root
  Remaining Hops            : 20
                                                           Designated
  Port  Type      Cost      Priority Role       State      Bridge
  ----- --------- --------- -------- ---------- ---------- -------------
  2     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  3     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  4     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  5     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  6     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  7     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  8     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  9     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  10    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  11    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  12    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  14    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  15    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  16    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  17    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  18    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  19    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  20    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  21    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  22    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  Trk1            20000     128      Designated Forwarding 0026f1-dff400
  Trk2            200000    128      Master     Forwarding 0026f1-dff400

HP-SW1# show spanning-tree mst-config

 MST Configuration Identifier Information

  MST Configuration Name : AcmeNetworks
  MST Configuration Revision : 1
  MST Configuration Digest : 0x6DA4B50C4FD587757EEF0356753605E1

  IST Mapped VLANs : 1

  Instance ID Mapped VLANs
  ----------- ---------------------------------------------------------
  1           100
  2           200

HP 2810 Switch 2

HP-SW2# show lacp

                           LACP

   PORT   LACP      TRUNK     PORT      LACP      LACP
   NUMB   ENABLED   GROUP     STATUS    PARTNER   STATUS
   ----   -------   -------   -------   -------   -------
   1      Active    Trk1      Up        Yes       Success
   13     Active    Trk1      Up        Yes       Success
   23     Active    Trk2      Up        Yes       Success
   24     Active    Trk2      Up        Yes       Success


HP-SW2# show cdp neighbors

 CDP neighbors information

  Port Device ID                     | Platform                     Capability
  ---- ----------------------------- + ---------------------------- -----------
  1    00 26 f1 df f4 00             | ProCurve J9021A Switch 28... S
  13   00 26 f1 df f4 00             | ProCurve J9021A Switch 28... S
  23   C2950-SW2                     | Cisco Internetwork Operat... S
  24   C2950-SW2                     | Cisco Internetwork Operat... S

HP-SW2# show spanning-tree

 Multiple Spanning Tree (MST) Information

  STP Enabled   : Yes
  Force Version : MSTP-operation
  IST Mapped VLANs : 1

  Switch MAC Address : 0026f1-e141a0
  Switch Priority    : 32768
  Max Age  : 20
  Max Hops : 20
  Forward Delay : 15

  Topology Change Count  : 65
  Time Since Last Change : 66 mins

  CST Root MAC Address : 3475c7-32a400
  CST Root Priority    : 16384
  CST Root Path Cost   : 200000
  CST Root Port        : Trk1

  IST Regional Root MAC Address : 0026f1-dff400
  IST Regional Root Priority    : 32768
  IST Regional Root Path Cost   : 20000
  IST Remaining Hops            : 19

  Root Guard Ports :
  TCN Guard Ports  :
  Protected Ports :
  Filtered Ports :

                  |           Prio             | Designated    Hello
  Port  Type      | Cost      rity  State      | Bridge        Time  PtP Edge
  ----- --------- + --------- ----- ---------- + ------------- ----- --- ----
  2     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  3     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  4     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  5     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  6     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  7     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  8     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  9     100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  10    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  11    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  12    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  14    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  15    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  16    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  17    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  18    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  19    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  20    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  21    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  22    100/1000T | Auto      128   Disabled   |
  Trk1            | 20000     64    Forwarding | 0026f1-dff400 2     Yes No
  Trk2            | 200000    64    Blocking   | 0018ba-8e4a40 2     Yes No

HP-SW2# show spanning-tree instance 1

 MST Instance Information

  Instance ID : 1
  Mapped VLANs : 100

  Switch Priority         : 32768

  Topology Change Count   : 11
  Time Since Last Change  : 66 mins

  Regional Root MAC Address : 0026f1-dff400
  Regional Root Priority    : 32768
  Regional Root Path Cost   : 20000
  Regional Root Port        : Trk1
  Remaining Hops            : 19
                                                           Designated
  Port  Type      Cost      Priority Role       State      Bridge
  ----- --------- --------- -------- ---------- ---------- -------------
  2     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  3     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  4     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  5     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  6     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  7     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  8     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  9     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  10    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  11    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  12    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  14    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  15    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  16    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  17    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  18    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  19    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  20    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  21    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  22    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  Trk1            20000     128      Root       Forwarding 0026f1-dff400
  Trk2            200000    128      Alternate  Blocking   0026f1-e141a0

HP-SW2# show spanning-tree instance 2

 MST Instance Information

  Instance ID : 2
  Mapped VLANs : 200

  Switch Priority         : 32768

  Topology Change Count   : 10
  Time Since Last Change  : 66 mins

  Regional Root MAC Address : 0026f1-dff400
  Regional Root Priority    : 32768
  Regional Root Path Cost   : 20000
  Regional Root Port        : Trk1
  Remaining Hops            : 19
                                                           Designated
  Port  Type      Cost      Priority Role       State      Bridge
  ----- --------- --------- -------- ---------- ---------- -------------
  2     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  3     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  4     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  5     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  6     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  7     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  8     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  9     100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  10    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  11    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  12    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  14    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  15    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  16    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  17    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  18    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  19    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  20    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  21    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  22    100/1000T Auto      128      Disabled   Disabled
  Trk1            20000     128      Root       Forwarding 0026f1-dff400
  Trk2            200000    128      Alternate  Blocking   0026f1-e141a0

HP-SW2#  show spanning-tree mst-config

 MST Configuration Identifier Information

  MST Configuration Name : AcmeNetworks
  MST Configuration Revision : 1
  MST Configuration Digest : 0x6DA4B50C4FD587757EEF0356753605E1

  IST Mapped VLANs : 1

  Instance ID Mapped VLANs
  ----------- ---------------------------------------------------------
  1           100
  2           200

Cheers!

LACP Configuration Examples (Part 6)

Michael McNamara — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 00:50:05 +0000

While we’re at it let’s add two Cisco Catalyst 2950 switches to our topology and detail how to configure those additional switches. This has already been documented hundreds of times across the Internet so I’m doing this more for myself than for anyone else. The Cisco 2950 supports EtherChannel in one of these modes: Port Aggregation Protocol (PAgP) or Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP). There always seems to be some confusion regarding the configuration between PAgP and LACP so let me quote straight from the Cisco documentation:

Switch interfaces exchange PAgP packets only with partner interfaces configured in the auto or desirable modes. Switch interfaces exchange LACP packets only with partner interfaces configured in the active or passive modes. Interfaces configured in the on mode do not exchange PAgP or LACP packets.
…
Both the auto and desirable PAgP modes allow interfaces to negotiate with partner interfaces to determine if they can form an EtherChannel based on criteria such as interface speed and, for Layer 2 EtherChannels, trunking state and VLAN numbers.
…
Both the active and passive LACP modes allow interfaces to negotiate with partner interfaces to determine if they can form an EtherChannel based on criteria such as interface speed and, for Layer 2 EtherChannels, trunking state, and VLAN numbers.

We’ll be configuring our EtherChannel for LACP so we’ll use channel-group x mode active on both the Cisco 3750 and 2950 switches.

Sample Topology

Cisco Catalyst 3750E Switch

enable
config t
interface gig1/0/37
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 3 mode active
interface gig1/0/38
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 3 mode active

interface gig1/0/47
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 4 mode active
interface gig1/0/48
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 4 mode active
exit
exit

Cisco Catalyst 2950 Switch 1 & 2

enable
config t
vlan 100
name "192-168-100-0/24"
exit
vlan 200
name "192-168-200-0/24"
exit

interface vlan 100
ip address 192.168.100.40 255.255.255.0
no shut
exit

spanning-tree mode mst

spanning-tree mst configuration
 name AcmeNetworks
 revision 1
 instance 1 vlan 100
 instance 2 vlan 200

interface fas0/1
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 1 mode active

interface fas0/2
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 1 mode active

interface port-channel 1
switchport mode trunk

interface fas0/31
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 2 mode active

interface fas0/32
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 2 mode active

interface port-channel 2
switchport mode trunk
exit
exit

That’s all well and good but I’m sure you want to see the output… is it working as expected?

Cisco Catalyst 2950 Switch #1

C2950-SW1#show lacp neighbor
Flags:  S - Device is requesting Slow LACPDUs
        F - Device is requesting Fast LACPDUs
        A - Device is in Active mode       P - Device is in Passive mode

Channel group 1 neighbors

Partner's information:

                  LACP port                        Oper    Port     Port
Port      Flags   Priority  Dev ID         Age     Key     Number   State
Fa0/1     SA      32768     0064.xxxx.4d80   7s    0x3     0x126    0x3D
Fa0/2     SA      32768     0064.xxxx.4d80  21s    0x3     0x127    0x3D

Channel group 2 neighbors

Partner's information:

                  LACP port                        Oper    Port     Port
Port      Flags   Priority  Dev ID         Age     Key     Number   State
Fa0/31    SA      32768     0019.xxxx.49c0  23s    0x2     0x1F     0x3D
Fa0/32    SA      32768     0019.xxxx.49c0  21s    0x2     0x20     0x3D

C2950-SW1#show spanning-tree

MST00
  Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
  Root ID    Priority    16384
             Address     3475.xxxx.a400
             Cost        0
             Port        65 (Port-channel1)
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32768  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 0)
             Address     0018.xxxx.4a40
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1              Root FWD 100000    128.65   P2p
Po2              Desg FWD 100000    128.66   P2p

MST01
  Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
  Root ID    Priority    16385
             Address     54e0.xxxx.d441
             Cost        110000
             Port        65 (Port-channel1)
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32769  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 1)
             Address     0018.xxxx.4a40
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1              Root FWD 100000    128.65   P2p
Po2              Desg FWD 100000    128.66   P2p

MST02
  Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
  Root ID    Priority    16386
             Address     0064.xxxx.4d80
             Cost        100000
             Port        65 (Port-channel1)
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32770  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 2)
             Address     0018.xxxx.4a40
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1              Root FWD 100000    128.65   P2p
Po2              Desg FWD 100000    128.66   P2p

Let’s have a look at the other Cisco 2950 switch;

Cisco Catalyst 2950 Switch #2

C2950-SW2#show lacp neighbor
Flags:  S - Device is requesting Slow LACPDUs
        F - Device is requesting Fast LACPDUs
        A - Device is in Active mode       P - Device is in Passive mode

Channel group 1 neighbors

Partner's information:

                  LACP port                        Oper    Port     Port
Port      Flags   Priority  Dev ID         Age     Key     Number   State
Fa0/1     SA      32768     0064.xxxx.4d80   9s    0x4     0x130    0x3D
Fa0/2     SA      32768     0064.xxxx.4d80  10s    0x4     0x131    0x3D

Channel group 2 neighbors

Partner's information:

                  LACP port                        Oper    Port     Port
Port      Flags   Priority  Dev ID         Age     Key     Number   State
Fa0/31    SA      32768     0018.xxxx.4a40   4s    0x2     0x1F     0x3D
Fa0/32    SA      32768     0018.xxxx.4a40  25s    0x2     0x20     0x3D

C2950-SW2#show spanning-tree

MST00
  Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
  Root ID    Priority    16384
             Address     3475.xxxx.a400
             Cost        0
             Port        65 (Port-channel1)
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32768  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 0)
             Address     0019.xxxx.49c0
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1              Root FWD 100000    128.65   P2p
Po2              Altn BLK 100000    128.66   P2p

MST01
  Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
  Root ID    Priority    16385
             Address     54e0.xxxx.d441
             Cost        110000
             Port        65 (Port-channel1)
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32769  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 1)
             Address     0019.xxxx.49c0
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1              Root FWD 100000    128.65   P2p
Po2              Altn BLK 100000    128.66   P2p

MST02
  Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
  Root ID    Priority    16386
             Address     0064.xxxx.4d80
             Cost        100000
             Port        65 (Port-channel1)
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32770  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 2)
             Address     0019.xxxx.49c0
             Hello Time   2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type
---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1              Root FWD 100000    128.65   P2p
Po2              Altn BLK 100000    128.66   P2p

We can see that ports Fas0/31 and Fas0/32 that make up Port-Channel 2 are in Alternate Blocking mode on SW2. This is expected since the bridge address of SW1 (0018.xxxx.4a40) is lower than SW2 (0019.xxxx.49c0) and the links are equal cost.

Cheers!
Image credit: Ravenel Bridge Charleston by Roger Kirby

LACP Configuration Examples (Part 5)

Michael McNamara — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 23:07:06 +0000

Let’s keep going… let’s bring a Cisco 3750E into the topology and let’s talk about utilizing Spanning Tree. Let’s get this out the way, Avaya does NOT recommend that you disable Spanning Tree. Avaya’s Split MultiLink Trunking (SMLT) is not compatible with the Spanning Tree Protocol so you can’t run STP over SMLT links. You can still run STP on edge ports and even ports utilizing MultiLink Trunking (MLT) or LACP/802.3ad. This is in contrast to Cisco’s Virtual Port Channel (vPC) which is interoperable with Spanning Tree.

Let’s look at expanding the topology from our last post adding a Cisco 3750E;

Again, that’s pretty straight forward and isn’t too exciting. Although if we leave every uplink/downlink as a member of VLAN 100 and VLAN 200 we’ll end up with a loop in our topology – not a Spanning Tree Loop. What if we add Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) to our configuration just to make it interesting? Our topology might look like this with 2 instances of MSTP running, one for each VLAN.

We’ll make the Avaya switch the root bridge for CIST. We’ll make the Juniper switch the root bridge for MST 1, and we’ll make the Cisco switch the root bridge for MST 2.

That’s interesting… let’s see what we need to-do in order to configure everything up. I’m going to pickup the configuration as I had it setup in the previous post, LACP Configuration Examples (Part 4). We’ll need to add another LACP group/pair to our Avaya and Juniper switches as well as configure the Cisco switch. We’ll also need to enable MSTP on each switch, add the VLANs to the correct MSTP instances and set the correct bridge priority for each.

Juniper EX2200-C Switch

configure
set chassis aggregated-devices ethernet device-count 2

delete interfaces ge-0/0/4 unit 0
delete interfaces ge-0/0/5 unit 0

set interfaces ge-0/0/4 ether-options 802.3ad ae1
set interfaces ge-0/0/5 ether-options 802.3ad ae1
set interfaces ae1 aggregated-ether-options lacp active
set interfaces ae1 aggregated-ether-options lacp periodic fast

set interfaces ae1 unit 0 family ethernet-switching
set interfaces ae1 unit 0 family ethernet-switching port-mode trunk
set interfaces ae1 unit 0 family ethernet-switching port-mode trunk vlan members VLAN-100 members VLAN-200

delete protocols rstp

set protocols mstp configuration-name AcmeNetworks
set protocols mstp revision-level 1
set protocols mstp msti 1 vlan 100
set protocols mstp msti 2 vlan 200

set protocols mstp msti 1 bridge-priority 16384
commit and-quit

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5520

config t
spanning-tree mode mst
exit
boot

You’ll need to reboot the switch in order to enable MSTP, so go ahead and reboot before continuing the steps;

config t
vlan ports 25,26 tagging tagAll

interface fastEthernet 25,26
lacp key 25
lacp mode active
lacp timeout-time short
lacp aggregation enable
exit

spanning-tree mstp msti 1
spanning-tree mstp msti 1 add-vlan 100
spanning-tree mstp msti 2
spanning-tree mstp msti 2 add-vlan 200
spanning-tree mstp priority 4000

You’ll notice that the Avaya switch accepts a hexadecimal value for the priority, so 4000 in hex = 16384 in decimal.

spanning-tree mstp region region-name AcmeNetworks
spanning-tree mstp region region-version 1
exit

Cisco Catalyst 3750E Switch

config t
vlan 100
name "192-168-100-0/24"
exit
vlan 200
name "192-168-200-0/24"
exit

interface vlan 100
ip address 192.168.100.30 255.255.255.0
no shut
exit

interface vlan 200
ip address 192.168.200.30 255.255.255.0
no shut
exit

interface gig1/0/13
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 1 mode active

interface gig1/0/14
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 1 mode active

interface gig1/0/25
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 2 mode active

interface gig1/0/26
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 2 mode active

spanning-tree mode mst

spanning-tree mst configuration
name AcmeNetworks
revision 1
instance 1 vlan 100
instance 2 vlan 200
exit
spanning-tree mst 2 priority 16384
exit

Let’s have a look at our work and see what everything looks like from both a LACP and Spanning Tree perspective.

Cisco Catalyst 3750E Switch

Switch#show lacp neighbor
Flags: S - Device is requesting Slow LACPDUs
F - Device is requesting Fast LACPDUs
A - Device is in Active mode P - Device is in Passive mode

Channel group 1 neighbors

Partner's information:

LACP port Admin Oper Port Port
Port Flags Priority Dev ID Age key Key Number State
Gi1/0/13 FA 127 54e0.xxxx.d440 5s 0x0 0x2 0x3 0x3F
Gi1/0/14 FA 127 54e0.xxxx.d440 5s 0x0 0x2 0x4 0x3F

Channel group 2 neighbors

Partner's information:

LACP port Admin Oper Port Port
Port Flags Priority Dev ID Age key Key Number State
Gi1/0/25 FA 32768 3475.xxxx.a400 14s 0x0 0x3019 0x19 0x3F
Gi1/0/26 FA 32768 3475.xxxx.a400 16s 0x0 0x3019 0x1A 0x3F

Switch#show spanning-tree

MST0
Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
Root ID Priority 16384
Address 3475.xxxx.a400
Cost 0
Port 496 (Port-channel2)
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 32768 (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 0)
Address 0064.xxxx.4d80
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type
------------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1 Desg FWD 10000 128.488 P2p
Po2 Root FWD 10000 128.496 P2p

MST1
Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
Root ID Priority 16385
Address 54e0.322a.d441
Cost 10000
Port 488 (Port-channel1)
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 32769 (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 1)
Address 0064.xxxx.4d80
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type
------------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1 Root FWD 10000 128.488 P2p
Po2 Desg FWD 10000 128.496 P2p

MST2
Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
Root ID Priority 16386
Address 0064.xxxx.4d80
This bridge is the root
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 16386 (priority 16384 sys-id-ext 2)
Address 0064.xxxx.4d80
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type
------------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1 Desg FWD 10000 128.488 P2p
Po2 Desg FWD 10000 128.496 P2p

We can see that LACP is up and running to both the Avaya and Juniper switches. We can also see that the Cisco switch is the root bridge for MSTI 2 and the root port for MSTI 1 is Port-channel 1 (link to Juniper EX2200-C) while the root port for the CIST is Port-channel2 (link to Avaya ERS 5520). All ports are designated and forwarding traffic.

Juniper EX2200-C Switch

root> show lacp interfaces
Aggregated interface: ae0
LACP state: Role Exp Def Dist Col Syn Aggr Timeout Activity
ge-0/0/0 Actor No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/0 Partner No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/1 Actor No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/1 Partner No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
LACP protocol: Receive State Transmit State Mux State
ge-0/0/0 Current Fast periodic Collecting distributing
ge-0/0/1 Current Fast periodic Collecting distributing

Aggregated interface: ae1
LACP state: Role Exp Def Dist Col Syn Aggr Timeout Activity
ge-0/0/4 Actor No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/4 Partner No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Slow Active
ge-0/0/5 Actor No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/5 Partner No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Slow Active
LACP protocol: Receive State Transmit State Mux State
ge-0/0/4 Current Slow periodic Collecting distributing
ge-0/0/5 Current Slow periodic Collecting distributing

root> show spanning-tree bridge

STP bridge parameters
Context ID : 0
Enabled protocol : MSTP

STP bridge parameters for CIST
Root ID : 16384.34:75:xx:xx:a4:00
Root cost : 0
Root port : ae0.0
CIST regional root : 16384.34:75:xx:xx:a4:00
CIST internal root cost : 10000
Hello time : 2 seconds
Maximum age : 20 seconds
Forward delay : 15 seconds
Hop count : 19
Message age : 0
Number of topology changes : 2
Time since last topology change : 14690 seconds
Topology change initiator : ae0.0
Topology change last recvd. from : 34:75:xx:xx:a4:01
Local parameters
Bridge ID : 32768.54:e0:xx:xx:d4:41
Extended system ID : 0
Internal instance ID : 0

STP bridge parameters for MSTI 1
MSTI regional root : 16385.54:e0:xx:xx:d4:41
Hello time : 2 seconds
Maximum age : 20 seconds
Forward delay : 15 seconds
Number of topology changes : 5
Topology change initiator : ae1.0
Topology change last recvd. from : 00:64:xx:xx:4d:8d
Local parameters
Bridge ID : 16385.54:e0:xx:xx:d4:41
Extended system ID : 0
Internal instance ID : 1

STP bridge parameters for MSTI 2
MSTI regional root : 16386.00:64:xx:xx:4d:80
Root cost : 10000
Root port : ae1.0
Hello time : 2 seconds
Maximum age : 20 seconds
Forward delay : 15 seconds
Hop count : 19
Number of topology changes : 6
Topology change initiator : ae1.0
Topology change last recvd. from : 00:64:xx:xx:4d:8d
Local parameters
Bridge ID : 32770.54:e0:xx:xx:d4:41
Extended system ID : 0
Internal instance ID : 2

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5520

5520-48T-PWR#show lacp port 13-14,25-26
Admin Oper Trunk Partner
Port Priority Lacp A/I Timeout Key Key AggrId Id Port Status
---- -------- ------- --- ------- ----- ----- ------ ----- ------- ------
13 32768 Active A Short 1 12289 8224 32 1 Active
14 32768 Active A Short 1 12289 8224 32 2 Active
25 32768 Active A Short 25 12313 8223 31 282 Active
26 32768 Active A Short 25 12313 8223 31 283 Active

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp config
Maximum Mst Instance Number: 8
Number of Msti Supported: 2
Cist Bridge Priority (hex): 4000
Stp Version: Mstp Mode
Cist Bridge Max Age: 20 seconds
Cist Bridge Forward Delay: 15 seconds
Tx Hold Count: 3
Path Cost Default Type: 32-bit
Max Hop Count: 2000

VLAN members
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
1

Msti Config Id Selector: 0
Msti Region Name: AcmeNetworks
Msti Region Version: 1
Msti Config Digest: 6D:A4:B5:0C:4F:D5:87:75:7E:EF:03:56:75:36:05:E1

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp msti config 1
Msti Bridge Regional Root:  40:00:54:E0:xx:xx:D4:41
Msti Bridge Priority (hex): F000
Msti Root Cost:             10000
Msti Root Port:             MLT 32
Msti State:                 Enabled

VLAN members
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
100

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp msti config 2
Msti Bridge Regional Root:  40:00:00:64:xx:xx:4D:80
Msti Bridge Priority (hex): F000
Msti Root Cost:             10000
Msti Root Port:             MLT 31
Msti State:                 Enabled

VLAN members
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
200

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp msti port role 1
Port Role State STP Status Oper Status
---- ---------- ---------- ---------- -----------
13 Root Forwarding Enabled Enabled
14 Root Forwarding Enabled Enabled
25 Alternate Discarding  Enabled Enabled
26 Alternate Discarding  Enabled Enabled

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp msti port role 2
Port Role State STP Status Oper Status
---- ---------- ---------- ---------- -----------
13 Alternate Discarding  Enabled Enabled
14 Alternate Discarding  Enabled Enabled
25 Root Forwarding Enabled Enabled
26 Root Forwarding Enabled Enabled

We can see from the output above that ports 13,14 are Alternate Discarding for MSTI 1 while ports 25,26 are Alternate Discarding for MSTI 2.

In the output we can see which port is the root bridge port for each switch, we can also see the MSTP config digest which should match on every switch in the topology. In order for the configuration to be valid the MST region name, version and config selector need to match along with correct VLAN IDs matched to the correct MST instance.

Cheers!
Image Credit: New York City Brooklyn Bridge by Diogo Ferrari

LACP Configuration Examples (Part 4)

Michael McNamara — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:38:56 +0000

As is usually the case at this time of the year I have some vacation time to burn. After all my choirs and mini projects I still have time left for tinkering, so this past week I opened the box on a Juniper EX2200-C switch. I’ve enjoyed configuring the deploying the Juniper SRX security gateway so I was eager to see what I could do with the EX2200-C.

In the past I’ve demonstrated how to connect an Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 to an Avaya Ethernet Switch 470, an Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 Cluster to an Avaya Ethernet Switch 470 via SMLT, an Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 Cluster to a HP GbE2c(Blade Technologies) via SMLT, and even an Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5520 to Cisco Catalyst 3750E.

In this post I’ll demonstrate how to establish an LACP 802.3ad link over 2 Gigabit interfaces between an Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5520 and a Juniper EX2200C switch. This isn’t really rocket science but I’m continually getting questions from all four corners of the globe regarding LACP configurations.

Sample Topology

This is a pretty simple topology, we’ll connect ports 13 and 14 on the ERS-5520 to ports ge-0/0/0 and ge-0/0/1 on the EX2200-C respectively. We’ll create VLANs 100 and 200 and assign them IP interfaces in the 192.168.100.0/24 and 192.168.200.0/24 networks respectively. We’ll test connectivity by pinging from one switch to the other on each VLAN.

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5520

Here’s the configuration for the ERS-5520;

vlan ports 13,14 tagging tagAll

vlan create 100 name "VLAN-100" type port
vlan create 200 name "VLAN-200" type port

vlan members remove 1 all
vlan members add 100 13,14
vlan members add 200 13,14

interface vlan 100
ip address 192.168.100.10 255.255.255.0
exit
interface vlan 200
ip address 192.168.200.10 255.255.255.0
exit

ip routing
interface fastEthernet 13,14
lacp key 1
lacp mode active
lacp timeout-time short
lacp aggregation enable
exit

Juniper EX2200-C Switch

Here’s the configuration for the EX2200-C;

set vlans VLAN-100 vlan-id 100
set vlans VLAN-200 vlan-id 200
set interfaces vlan unit 100 family inet address 192.168.100.20/24
set interfaces vlan unit 200 family inet address 192.168.200.20/24
set vlans VLAN-100 l3-interface vlan.100
set vlans VLAN-200 l3-interface vlan.200

delete interfaces ge-0/0/0 unit 0
delete interfaces ge-0/0/1 unit 0
set chassis aggregated-devices ethernet device-count 1
set interfaces ge-0/0/0 ether-options 802.3ad ae0
set interfaces ge-0/0/1 ether-options 802.3ad ae0
set interfaces ae0 aggregated-ether-options lacp active
set interfaces ae0 aggregated-ether-options lacp periodic fast

set interfaces ae0 unit 0 family ethernet-switching
set interfaces ae0 unit 0 family ethernet-switching port-mode trunk
set interfaces ae0 unit 0 family ethernet-switching port-mode trunk vlan members VLAN-100 members VLAN-200

That’s really all there is to it… hopefully it’s pretty straight forward.

Troubleshooting

If you want to make sure that LACP is up and running there are a few commands you can use;

Juniper

root> show interfaces ae0 extensive
Physical interface: ae0, Enabled, Physical link is Up
  Interface index: 143, SNMP ifIndex: 531, Generation: 146
  Link-level type: Ethernet, MTU: 1514, Speed: 2Gbps, BPDU Error: None,
  MAC-REWRITE Error: None, Loopback: Disabled, Source filtering: Disabled,
  Flow control: Disabled, Minimum links needed: 1, Minimum bandwidth needed: 0
  Device flags   : Present Running
  Interface flags: SNMP-Traps Internal: 0x4000
  Current address: 54:e0:xx:2a:d4:43, Hardware address: 54:e0:xx:2a:d4:43
  Last flapped   : 2012-08-25 10:41:06 UTC (01:35:06 ago)
  Statistics last cleared: Never
  Traffic statistics:
   Input  bytes  :              2101034                 3056 bps
   Output bytes  :              1566394                 2032 bps
   Input  packets:                19178                    2 pps
   Output packets:                11909                    0 pps
   IPv6 transit statistics:
    Input  bytes  :                   0
    Output bytes  :                   0
    Input  packets:                   0
    Output packets:                   0
  Input errors:
    Errors: 0, Drops: 0, Framing errors: 0, Runts: 0, Giants: 0,
    Policed discards: 0, Resource errors: 0
  Output errors:
    Carrier transitions: 2, Errors: 0, Drops: 0, MTU errors: 0,
    Resource errors: 0

  Logical interface ae0.0 (Index 65) (SNMP ifIndex 533) (Generation 145)
    Flags: SNMP-Traps 0x40004000 Encapsulation: ENET2
    Statistics        Packets        pps         Bytes          bps
    Bundle:
        Input :          2936          0        176682            0
        Output:            94          0          7163            0
    Link:
      ge-0/0/0.0
      ge-0/0/1.0
    LACP info:        Role     System             System      Port    Port  Port
                             priority          identifier  priority  number   key
      ge-0/0/0.0     Actor        127  54:e0:32:xx:d4:40       127       1     1
      ge-0/0/0.0   Partner      32768  34:75:c7:xx:a4:00     32768      13 12289
      ge-0/0/1.0     Actor        127  54:e0:32:xx:d4:40       127       2     1
      ge-0/0/1.0   Partner      32768  34:75:c7:xx:a4:00     32768      14 12289
    LACP Statistics:       LACP Rx     LACP Tx   Unknown Rx   Illegal Rx
      ge-0/0/0.0              5708        5699            0            0
      ge-0/0/1.0              5708        5699            0            0
    Marker Statistics:   Marker Rx     Resp Tx   Unknown Rx   Illegal Rx
      ge-0/0/0.0                 0           0            0            0
      ge-0/0/1.0                 0           0            0            0
    Protocol eth-switch, Generation: 162, Route table: 0
      Flags: Trunk-Mode

root> show lacp interfaces
Aggregated interface: ae0
    LACP state:       Role   Exp   Def  Dist  Col  Syn  Aggr  Timeout  Activity
      ge-0/0/0       Actor    No    No   Yes  Yes  Yes   Yes     Fast    Active
      ge-0/0/0     Partner    No    No   Yes  Yes  Yes   Yes     Fast    Active
      ge-0/0/1       Actor    No    No   Yes  Yes  Yes   Yes     Fast    Active
      ge-0/0/1     Partner    No    No   Yes  Yes  Yes   Yes     Fast    Active
    LACP protocol:        Receive State  Transmit State          Mux State
      ge-0/0/0                  Current   Fast periodic Collecting distributing
      ge-0/0/1                  Current   Fast periodic Collecting distributing

It’s always a good idea to have a look at the MAC or forwarding table to see what it looks like;

root> show ethernet-switching table
Ethernet-switching table: 7 entries, 2 learned
  VLAN              MAC address       Type         Age Interfaces
  default           54:e0:32:xx:d4:41 Static         - Router
  VLAN-100          *                 Flood          - All-members
  VLAN-100          34:75:c7:xx:a4:41 Learn       2:02 ae0.0
  VLAN-100          54:e0:32:xx:d4:41 Static         - Router
  VLAN-200          *                 Flood          - All-members
  VLAN-200          34:75:c7:xx:a4:42 Learn       1:50 ae0.0
  VLAN-200          54:e0:32:xx:d4:41 Static         - Router

Avaya

5520-48T-PWR#show lacp stats 13,14
Port 13   -------------------------------------
          LACPDUs Rx:             5784
          LACPDUs Tx:             6631
          MarkerPDUs Rx:          0
          MarkerResponsePDUs Rx:  0
          MarkerPDUs Tx:          0
          MarkerResponsePDUs Tx:  0
          UnknownPDUs Rx:         0
          IllegalPDUs Rx:         0
Port 14   -------------------------------------
          LACPDUs Rx:             5784
          LACPDUs Tx:             6631
          MarkerPDUs Rx:          0
          MarkerResponsePDUs Rx:  0
          MarkerPDUs Tx:          0
          MarkerResponsePDUs Tx:  0
          UnknownPDUs Rx:         0
          IllegalPDUs Rx:         0

5520-48T-PWR#show lacp port 13,14
                                  Admin Oper         Trunk Partner
Port Priority Lacp    A/I Timeout Key   Key   AggrId Id    Port    Status
---- -------- ------- --- ------- ----- ----- ------ ----- ------- ------
13   32768    Active  A   Short   1     12289 8224   32    1       Active
14   32768    Active  A   Short   1     12289 8224   32    2       Active

5520-48T-PWR#show lacp aggr
Aggr ID Trunk Status   Type   Members
------- ----- -------- ------ -------------------
8224    32    Enabled  LA     13-14

Let’s see what the forwarding table on the Avaya switch looks like;

5520-48T-PWR#show mac-address-table
Mac Address Table Aging Time: 300
Number of addresses: 4

   MAC Address    Vid  Source          MAC Address    Vid  Source
----------------- ---- -------      ----------------- ---- -------
34-75-C7-XX-A4-00    1              54-E0-32-XX-D4-43    1 Trunk:32
54-E0-32-XX-D4-44    1 Trunk:32     34-75-C7-XX-A4-41  100
54-E0-32-XX-D4-41  100 Trunk:32     34-75-C7-XX-A4-42  200
54-E0-32-XX-D4-41  200 Trunk:32

We need to determine what’s “Trunk 32” so we issue the following command;

5520-48T-PWR#show mlt 32
Id Name             Members                Bpdu   Mode           Status  Type
-- ---------------- ---------------------- ------ -------------- ------- ------
32 Trunk #32        13-14                  Single DynLag/Basic   Enabled Trunk

Cheers!

Is VLACP right for me?

Michael McNamara — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 04:15:11 +0000

What is VLACP and why do I need it? That’s a question that I see being asked quite frequently and not all the answers are correct. I’m hoping to answer this question once and for all and explain the rational behind the protocol and describe some of the issues and difficulties that VLACP helps address.

What is VLACP?

VLACP is an Avaya proprietary protocol used to detect end-to-end failures. VLACP takes the point-to-point hello mechanism of LACP and uses it to periodically send hello packets to ensure end-to-end reachability and provide failure detection across a Layer 2 network. When Hello packets are not received, VLACP transitions to a failure state and the port will be brought down.

Why use VLACP?

We know that auto-negotiation supports both RFI and FEFI so if our interfaces are configured for auto-negotiation those mechanisms will protect us by detecting a link failure scenario. If auto-negotiation is not available (Ethernet Switch 470 GBICs) then VLACP can help detect link failures and prevent frames being mistakenly transmitted into oblivion when the far end is down. If we are using a LAN extension or Q in Q solution link will only prove that we have connectivity to the edge of the network. VLACP will flow across the entire carrier network verifying that we have connectivity end to end across the entire Layer 2 network.

Why is VLACP so important in an IST/SMLT configuration?

Well we know that failure detection is a big issue and something that a lot of vendors work towards refining. You have a link failure or core failure and the network quickly converges and re-routes traffic so there’s no or limited disruption of traffic. Let me ask you what happens when that link or core recovers?

Let me take the example of a core switch failure as an example which should easily make the point. When that switch starts to recover we don’t want to immediately start accepting packets from edge/distribution switches in the network until we can re-establish the IST link. Let’s say we also want to have a complete routing table populated too before we start accepting packets. We need a way to bring up the port to the edge/distribution switch but we also need to let that switch know that we’re not yet ready to bridge/route traffic. VLACP answers that problem by allowing the link to establish and sending VLACP PDUs to the far end switch telling it not to start forwarding frames until we’re ready to receive them.

Avaya has been working to refine how VLACP works and released a significant improvement in March 2011 which is available in the following software releases;

Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 v5.1.4 (or later)
Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 Series v6.1.6 (or later)
Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 Series v5.5 (or later)

Here’s a blurb on the change from the ERS 8600 release notes;

VLACP HOLD Enhancement
During SMLT node failure scenarios, traffic loss may be observed in certain scaled SMLT configurations with hundreds of SLTs, hundreds of ports and tens of VLANs. The root cause for the traffic loss was that the ERS8600 ports would come up prematurely at the physical layer causing the remote end to start sending traffic toward the ERS8600 that just came up. On the ERS8600 that just rebooted, the communication between the line cards and the CP may take several seconds in such scaled configurations. This resulted in black-holing the traffic arriving on such ports which were physically up but all operational configuration was not yet performed on those ports by the CP. The VLACP SUBTYPE HOLD feature introduces a new VLACP PDU with a new subtype HOLD to help reduce traffic loss in such scenarios.
The goal of this new implementation is to “hold down” all VLACP enabled links for a specific period of time after a reboot. This prevents remote VLACP enabled devices that understand the new VLACP HOLD PDU from sending data to the ERS8600. This will ensure that all VLACP enabled ports on the ERS8600 have had sufficient time to come up with all operational configuration and are ready to receive and forward the ingress traffic.
ERS8600 switches with 5.1.4.0 release are capable of both sending and receiving VLACP HOLD PDUs. Future code revisions of the Baystack switch family will support receipt and processing of VLACP HOLD PDUs, but will not generate them. Please refer to the applicable product release notes for information regarding product specific software levels required for support of this VLACP enhancement. VLACP is an Avaya proprietary protocol and hence this enhancement in not applicable when connecting to switches from other vendors.
By default, the VLACP HOLD feature will be disabled. The feature is enabled by configuring a positive value for VLACP HOLD Time. The VLACP Hold Time value configured should be selected based on the specific recovery implementation requirements, size and recovery characteristics for your network implementation.

How do you configure VLACP?

Since VLACP is a Avaya (formerly Nortel) proprietary protocol you can only configure VLACP on a point to point link between two Avaya switches. In a scenario where you are utilizing a carrier TLS (Transparent LAN Services) the two switches at the ends of the network need to be Avaya but the switches in the carrier network can be from any manufacturer so long as they forward the Layer 2 VLACP PDUs through the network.

Here’s a quick example of how to enable VLACP on a DMLT (Distributed MultiLink Trunk) between an edge Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 and an Ethernet Routing Switch 8600;

Ethernet Routing Switch 5520

interface fastEthernet 1/48,2/48
vlacp port 1/48,2/48 timeout short
vlacp port 1/48,2/48 timeout-scale 5
vlacp port 1/48,2/48 fast-periodic-time 500
vlacp port 1/48,2/48 enable
exit

vlacp macaddress 01:80:c2:00:00:0f
vlacp hold_time 20
vlacp enable

Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 (NNCLI)

config ethernet 3/1,4/1 vlacp fast-periodic-time 500
config ethernet 3/1,4/1 vlacp timeout short
config ethernet 3/1,4/1 vlacp timeout-scale 5
config ethernet 3/1,4/1 vlacp macaddress 01:80:c2:00:00:0f
config ethernet 3/1,4/1 vlacp enable

config vlacp hold-time 20
config vlacp enable

Is VLACP right for me?

If you are running a pair of Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 or 8600/8800s in a switch cluster then you should most definitely be utilizing VLACP. If you are running a multi-vendor network then VLACP might not be possible since it’s an Avaya proprietary protocol. If you are running a simple flat network with MLT or DMLT links between Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 and 5000 series switches then VLACP might not provide a whole lot of value assuming you are running auto-negotiation and have RFI and FEFI capabilities.

There have been a number of issues with VLACP over the past few years but a great many of those have been resolved in later software releases. If you have hundreds of interfaces running VLACP you can run into scaling issues depending on the CPU/SF that you have in your Ethernet Routing Switch 8600. If you stick with the recommended short timer value of 500ms with a value of 5 retries you shouldn’t have any issues. Yes that equates to 2.5 seconds of time before an interface is mark down by VLACP but that’s a value that most peripherals should be able to tolerate including Avaya’s IP telephony. You can be more aggressive with the retry count but you might end up missing VLACP polls and have interfaces marked down when they actually aren’t down.

I’m running VLACP at every site I have now for the past 3 years and have had very few problems. It’s actually saved me on a number of occasions because the Ethernet Switch 470 48Ts that don’t support auto-negotiation on the GBICs and VLACP has been able to detect the problem and mark the link as down allowing the traffic to flow over the remaining link(s) with no interruption to user traffic.

Are you running VLACP?

Cheers!

References;

Link Aggregation Control Protocol(LACP) 802.3ad and VLACP for ES and ERS Technical Configuration Guide

802.1Q VLAN Tagging on a Cisco Catalyst 3750-E

Michael McNamara — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 18:29:16 +0000

In the two previous posts I covered how to create multiple VLANs, trunk those VLANs between multiple stackable Avaya Ethernet Routing Switches utilizing Multi-Link Trunking and how to create Layer 3 IP interfaces to be used for routing IP packets between those VLANs.

In this post I thought I would expand the network topology of my previous two posts to include a Cisco Catalyst 3750-E. I’ll specifically cover how to trunk (bridge) multiple VLANs between a stackable Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch and the Cisco Catalyst 3750-E and how to configure multiple interfaces in a Link Aggregation Group (LAG) utilizing LACP similar to Avaya’s proprietary MLT feature.

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4548

enable
config t

Let’s start by making ports 45 and 46 trunk ports which will utilize 802.1Q tagging;

vlan ports 45,46 tagging tagAll

Let’s add the VLANs we wish to bridge across the trunk ports;

vlan members add 1 45,46
vlan members add 100 45,46
vlan members add 200 45,46

Now we’ll enable LACP on ports 45 and 46 using the same LACP key which will automatically create the LAG;

interface fastEthernet 45
lacp key 10
lacp mode active
lacp timeout-time short
lacp aggregation enable
exit

interface fastEthernet 46
lacp key 10
lacp mode active
lacp timeout-time short
lacp aggregation enable
exit

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4548 – Show Commands

4548GT-PWR#show lacp port 45,46
Admin Oper         Trunk Partner
Port Priority Lacp    A/I Timeout Key   Key   AggrId Id    Port    Status
---- -------- ------- --- ------- ----- ----- ------ ----- ------- ------
45   32768    Active  A   Short   10    12298 8224   32    302     Active
46   32768    Active  A   Short   10    12298 8224   32    303     Active

4548GT-PWR#show mac-address-table
Mac Address Table Aging Time: 300
Number of addresses: 26

   MAC Address    Vid  Source         MAC Address    Vid  Source
----------------- ---- -------     ----------------- ---- -------
00-02-B3-CB-77-A2    1 Port:19     00-04-61-9E-46-7E    1 Port:21
00-0C-29-64-33-F9    1 Port:19     00-0C-29-A5-CB-54    1 Port:19
00-0F-20-95-38-D5    1 Port:11     00-18-01-EA-F4-45    1 Port: 1
00-1C-11-6B-DC-6B    1 Port: 1     00-1C-11-6D-15-27    1 Port: 1
00-1C-11-6D-15-DC    1 Port: 1     00-1E-7E-7C-2C-00    1
00-1E-7E-7C-2C-40    1             00-1F-0A-CE-BC-01    1 Trunk:1
00-1F-0A-CE-BC-40    1 Trunk:1     00-1F-D0-D0-BE-2D    1 Port:17
00-23-EE-96-AA-21    1 Port: 1     00-24-B5-F6-94-02    1 Trunk:1
00-64-40-CF-4D-AD    1 Trunk:32    00-64-40-CF-4D-AE    1 Trunk:32
00-64-40-CF-4D-C0    1 Trunk:32    00-0A-E4-76-9C-C8    2 Port:44
00-24-DC-DF-0D-08    2 Port:43     00-A0-F8-5E-CE-BC    2 Port:39
00-1F-0A-CE-BC-41  100 Trunk:1     00-24-7F-99-84-70  100 Port:25
00-64-40-CF-4D-AD  100 Trunk:32    00-1E-CA-F3-1D-B4  200 Port:26
00-1F-0A-CE-BC-43  200 Trunk:1     00-64-40-CF-4D-AD  200 Trunk:32

4548GT-PWR#show mlt
Id Name             Members                Bpdu   Mode           Status  Type
-- ---------------- ---------------------- ------ -------------- ------- ------
1  MLT_to_ERS5520   47-48                  All    Basic          Enabled Trunk
2  Trunk #2         NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
3  Trunk #3         NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
4  Trunk #4         NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
5  Trunk #5         NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
6  Trunk #6         NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
7  Trunk #7         NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
8  Trunk #8         NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
9  Trunk #9         NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
10 Trunk #10        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
11 Trunk #11        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
12 Trunk #12        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
13 Trunk #13        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
14 Trunk #14        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
15 Trunk #15        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
16 Trunk #16        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
17 Trunk #17        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
18 Trunk #18        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
19 Trunk #19        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
20 Trunk #20        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
21 Trunk #21        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
22 Trunk #22        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
23 Trunk #23        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
24 Trunk #24        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
25 Trunk #25        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
26 Trunk #26        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
27 Trunk #27        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
28 Trunk #28        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
29 Trunk #29        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
30 Trunk #30        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
31 Trunk #31        NONE                   All    Basic          Disabled
32 Trunk #32        45-46                  Single DynLag/Basic   Enabled Trunk

You might be looking at the output above and asking yourself what’s “Trunk 32”? Let me provide some quick background. You can have a total of 32 MLT/LAG trunks on a stackable Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch. When you create LACP trunks the switch automatically creates a LAG in the MLT table dynamically from the bottom up. While in the previous post I created “Trunk 1” by trunking ports 47 and 48 together (see above), in this post I’ve created an LACP trunk on ports 45 and 46 which will be reported it the switch as “Trunk 32”. You can also see it in the MAC/FDB table above.

Cisco Catalyst 3750-E

enable
config t

Let’s give the switch an IP address in VLAN 1 for management;

vlan 1
ip address 192.168.1.25 255.255.255.0
no shut
exit

Let’s create VLAN 100 and VLAN 200 on the switch;

vlan 100
name "192-168-100-0/24"
exit
vlan 200
name "192-168-200-0/24"
exit

Let’s add the appropriate edge ports to each VLAN;

interface range gigabitEthernet 1/0/1-12
switchport access vlan 1
exit
interface range gigabitEthernet 1/0/13-24
switchport access vlan 100
exit
interface range gigabitEthernet 1/0/25-36
switchport access vlan 200
exit

Let’s configure ports 45 and 46 as trunk ports and bond them together in channel-group utilizing LACP;

interface gigabitEthernet 1/0/45
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 1 mode active

interface gigabitEthernet 1/0/46
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 1 mode active

Cisco Catalyst 3750-E – Show Commands

SW-3750-E#show lacp neighbor
Flags:  S - Device is requesting Slow LACPDUs
F - Device is requesting Fast LACPDUs
A - Device is in Active mode       P - Device is in Passive mode

Channel group 1 neighbors

Partner's information:

LACP port                        Admin  Oper   Port    Port
Port      Flags   Priority  Dev ID          Age    key    Key    Number  State
Gi1/0/45  FA      32768     001e.7e7c.2c00  16s    0x0    0x300A 0x2D    0x3F
Gi1/0/46  FA      32768     001e.7e7c.2c00  27s    0x0    0x300A 0x2E    0x3F

Switch#show mac address-table
          Mac Address Table
-------------------------------------------

Vlan    Mac Address       Type        Ports
----    -----------       --------    -----
 All    0100.0ccc.cccc    STATIC      CPU
 All    0100.0ccc.cccd    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0000    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0001    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0002    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0003    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0004    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0005    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0006    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0007    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0008    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0009    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.000a    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.000b    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.000c    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.000d    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.000e    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.000f    STATIC      CPU
 All    0180.c200.0010    STATIC      CPU
 All    ffff.ffff.ffff    STATIC      CPU
   1    0004.619e.467e    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    000c.2964.33f9    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    000c.29a5.cb54    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    000f.2095.38d5    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    0018.01ea.f445    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    001c.116b.dc6b    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    001c.116d.1527    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    001c.116d.15dc    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    001e.7e7c.2c01    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    001e.7e7c.2c2d    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    001e.7e7c.2c2e    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    001f.d0d0.be2d    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    0023.ee96.aa21    DYNAMIC     Po1
   1    00a0.f85e.cebd    DYNAMIC     Po1
 100    0024.7f99.84e9    DYNAMIC     Po1
 200    0008.02e4.890a    DYNAMIC     Gi1/0/25
 200    001e.caf3.1db4    DYNAMIC     Po1
Total Mac Addresses for this criterion: 37

You might be asking why didn’t I assign the VLANs to the trunk ports on the Cisco Catalyst 3750-E… well with Cisco switches a trunk port is by default a member of all the VLANs that exist on the switch. So you don’t need to specifically add a VLAN to a trunk port, however, you can override the default behavior by telling the switch to only carry specific VLANs on a specific trunk port – this is called VLAN pruning.

Please feel free to point out any inconsistencies or errors I might have made.

Cheers!

LACP Configuration Examples (Part 3)

Michael McNamara — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:00:44 +0000

In part 3 of this series I’ll provide a relatively simple example of a LACP LAG between a HP GbE2c L2/L3 switch and two Nortel switches, we’ll terminate two different LAGs on the two ERS 8600 switches using Nortel’s proprietary SMLT (Split MultiLink Trunking) technology.

Example 2 – Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 to a set of HP GbE2c L2/L3 switches using LACP trunks with SMLT

As I said before a picture is worth a thousand words and can be very helpful in designing any network topology.

I’m going to skip the configuration of the two Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600s since you can refer to the earlier post for an example of how to configure them. In this design we need to disable the virtual cross connect that exists between the A and B sides of the two HP GbE2c switches. Please note that I’m working with the HP GbE2c (C-Class enclosure) not the GbE2 (P-Class enclosure). There are some slight differences between the two. The virtual trunk ports between the A and B sides are on ports 17 and 18 so those ports need to be disabled in order to prevent a loop.

HP-GbE2c-A / HP-GbE2c-B
/c/port 17/dis
/c/port 18/dis

With the virtual trunk cross connects disabled we can now wire each switch independently to the upstream switch(s) which in this case happens to be two ERS 8600s. As is usual for me I’ll create a network management VLAN and place the IP interface of each GbE2c switch in that VLAN (VLAN 200).

HP-GbE2c-A / HP-GbE2c-B
/c/l2/vlan 200
/c/l2/vlan 200/ena
/c/l2/vlan 200/name "10-101-255-0/24"

Let’s add VLAN 200 to the two ports, 21 and 22, that we’ll be using to uplink to the 8600 switches. We haven’t yet enabled tagging so the switch will ask you if you’d like to change the PVID from VLAN 1 (default) to VLAN 200, you can safely answer yes to this question.

HP-GbE2c-A / HP-GbE2c-B
/c/l2/vlan 200/add 21
/c/l2/vlan 200/add 22

Let’s enable tagging on both uplink ports along with RMON and set the PVID just to be safe;

HP-GbE2c-A / HP-GbE2c-B
/c/port 21/tag ena
/c/port 21/pvid 200
/c/port 21/rmon e
/c/port 22/tag ena
/c/port 22/pvid 200
/c/port 22/rmon e

Let’s turn off Spanning Tree on the uplinks, we only want Spanning Tree local to the switch since SMLT will take care of providing the loop free topology.

HP-GbE2c-A / HP-GbE2c-B
/c/l2/stp 1/port 21/off
/c/l2/stp 1/port 22/off

Now it’s time to configure LACP and create the LAG (Link Aggregation Group). We’ll using LACP key 50 but you could use any admin key (number) so long as both ports are configured with the same admin key.

HP-GbE2c-A / HP-GbE2c-B
/c/l2/lacp/port 21/mode active
/c/l2/lacp/port 21/adminkey 50
/c/l2/lacp/port 22/mode active
/c/l2/lacp/port 22/adminkey 50

Here’s the special sauce that will work in combination with the NIC teaming software to fail over in the event of an upstream switch problem or an uplink problem where the GbE2c continues to function but there’s a problem upstream. This configuration will cause the GbE2c switch to disable (admin-down) the server switch ports in the event that the LACP group goes down. This will cause the NIC teaming configuration on the servers to fail-over to the standby NIC.

HP-GbE2c-A / HP-GbE2c-B
/c/ufd/on
/c/ufd/fdp/ltm/addkey 50
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport  1
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport  2
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport  3
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport  4
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport  5
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport  6
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport  7
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport  8
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport  9
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport 10
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport 11
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport 12
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport 13
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport 14
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport 15
/c/ufd/fdp/ltd/addport 16

If you haven’t already let’s configure an IP address (for management) on VLAN 200;

HP-GbE2c-A
/c/l3/if 1/ena
/c/l3/if 1/addr 10.1.255.128
/c/l3/if 1/mask 255.255.255.0
/c/l3/if 1/broad 10.1.255.255
/c/l3/if 1/vlan 200

We need to use a different IP address for the B side switch on VLAN 200;

HP-GbE2c-B
/c/l3/if 1/ena
/c/l3/if 1/addr 10.1.255.129
/c/l3/if 1/mask 255.255.255.0
/c/l3/if 1/broad 10.1.255.255
/c/l3/if 1/vlan 200

As mentioned by a few other folks on this blog and in the forums this solution only provides an active/passive solution in terms of the NIC teaming configuration. This is because the GbE2c L2/L3 switches don’t support IST/SMLT technology. While this will only provide 1Gbps of bandwidth (2Gbps if you count full duplex) between the blade server and the network it will provide significant level of redundancy and high-availability. In this design the network is protected from a GbE2c switch failure, a Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 failure, and multiple uplink/downlink failures.

Please feel free to post comments and questions here about this post. Questions regarding specific configurations can be posted in the forums; http://forums.networkinfrastructure.info/nortel-ethernet-switching/

Cheers!

LACP Configuration Examples (Part 2)

Michael McNamara — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:00:56 +0000

[ad name=”ad-articlebodysq”]In part 1 of this post I provided a pretty simple example of an LACP LAG between two Nortel switches. In this post I’ll provide another example with a small twist thrown in; we’ll terminate the LAG on two ERS 8600 switches using Nortel’s proprietary SMLT (Split MultiLink Trunking) technology. In this example I’ll substitute the Nortel Ethernet Switch 470 for a Ethernet Routing Switch 5520. You’ll notice that the LACP configurations (commands) are identical between the 470 and 5520 switches.

Example 2 – Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 to Ethernet Switch 5520 using LACP trunk with SMLT

As I said before a picture is worth a thousand words and can be very helpful in designing any network topology.

As with the previous example we’ll start with the Ethernet Routing Switch 8600s and then progress to the Ethernet Routing Switch 5520s. In this example we’ll need to configure two ERS 8600 switches, I’ll assume that you already have an IST (InnerSwitch Trunk) built and running properly.

Let’s start by configuring a MLT group the same way we did so in the previous example. The ERS8600-A switch first;

ERS8600-A
config mlt 15 create
config mlt 15 name "SMLT_LACP"
config mlt 15 lacp key 15
config mlt 15 lacp enable

Now the ERS8600-B switch;

ERS8600-B
config mlt 15 create
config mlt 15 name "SMLT_LACP"
config mlt 15 lacp key 15
config mlt 15 lacp enable

In this example I’ve chosen to connect the uplinks to port 2/17 on each switch. I’ve chosen to use the same ports on both switches only to make the configuration easier to understand for myself. I would use whatever ports I wanted on either switch so long as they are all running at the same speed. In this case the ports are both 10/100Mbps ports and will auto-negotiate to 100Mbps with the MDI-X feature of the ERS 5520 switch.

I’ll enable tagging (802.1q) just like I did in my previous example and I’ll remove VLAN 1 and add VLAN 99. Outside of this example you would just add whatever VLANs you’ll be extended to the edge switch.

ERS8600-A
config ethernet 2/17 perform-tagging enable
config vlan 1 ports remove 2/17
config vlan 99 ports add 2/17

Now the ERS8600-B switch;

ERS8600-B
config ethernet 2/17 perform-tagging enable
config vlan 1 ports remove 2/17
config vlan 99 ports add 2/17

Next we’ll enable LACP on the specific ports and group them using the same admin key;

ERS8600-A
config ethernet 2/17 lacp key 15
config ethernet 2/17 lacp aggregation true
config ethernet 2/17 lacp timeout short
config ethernet 2/17 lacp enable

Now the ERS8600-B switch;

ERS8600-B
config ethernet 2/17 lacp key 15
config ethernet 2/17 lacp aggregation true
config ethernet 2/17 lacp timeout short
config ethernet 2/17 lacp enable

Now because we’re going to be running in an SMLT configuration we need to make a few global changes. We need to enable LACP globally, but we also need to make sure that both switches use the same LACP identifier when communicating with the edge switch. This is necessary so the edge switch won’t know that it’s actually connected to two different switches upstream. If the LACP identifiers didn’t match between the two ERS8600 switches the edge switch would become confused.

ERS8600-A
config lacp smlt-sys-id 00:01:81:28:84:00
config lacp enable

Now the ERS8600-B switch;

ERS8600-B
config lacp smlt-sys-id 00:01:81:28:84:00
config lacp enable

We need to configure the MLT to operate in an SMLT configuration. We also need to make sure that any VLANs we are extending to the edge switch are also bridged across the IST between the two ERS 8600 switches. In this example I’m extending VLAN 99 so I need to add VLAN 99 to the IST which happens to be MLT 1.

ERS8600-A
config mlt 15 smlt create smlt-id 15
config vlan 99 add-mlt 1

Now the ERS8600-B switch;

ERS8600-B
config mlt 15 smlt create smlt-id 15
config vlan 99 add-mlt 1

That’s all the commands required for the two ERS8600 switches.

With that said there are some best practices that should be applied to all downlinks when utilizing SMLT.

While I left this out of the previous example these settings are applicable to both examples.

Let’s make sure that we enable CP-LIMIT which will shutdown the port if the switch receives too many broadcast or multicast frames per second. While some users don’t like this feature it’s better to cut off an offending closet than loose an entire network due to a loop or misconfigured switch. A word of warning here! You do not want CP-LIMIT enabled on any ports used in your IST, you also don’t want it enabled on the uplinks of any ERS8600 switches that reside at the edge as they might cut themselves off from the network. Instead enable it in the core on the downlinks to the edge switches and closet switches.

ERS8600-A
config ethernet 2/17 cp-limit enable multicast-limit 2500 broadcast-limit 2500

Now the ERS8600-B switch;

ERS8600-B
config ethernet 2/17 cp-limit enable multicast-limit 2500 broadcast-limit 2500

Another feature that helps protect the network is SLPP (Simple Loop Protection Protocol). In my opinion this feature is a must for any serious network. I can’t tell you how many times this feature has saved the networks I manage today. This feature will detect a misconfigured MLT/LACP at the edge switch and shutdown one of the downlink ports to preventing a loop. With SLPP you need to pay attention to the threshold setting. You want different thresholds between the two ERS8600 switches so that only one uplink gets shutdown.

ERS8600-A
config slpp add 99
config slpp operation enable
config ethernet 2/17 slpp packet-rx-threshold 50
config ethernet 2/17 slpp packet-rx enable

Now the ERS8600-B switch with a threshold of 5;

ERS8600-B
config slpp add 99
config slpp operation enable
config ethernet 2/17 slpp packet-rx-threshold 5
config ethernet 2/17 slpp packet-rx enable

That’s it for the two ERS8600 switches.

I’m literally going to cut and past the configuration of the ERS5520 from the previous example as it should be identical.

vlan ports 33,34 tagging tagAll

Let’s add VLAN 99 to the ports, I’ve already created the VLAN ahead of time.

vlan members add 99 33,34

Now we just need to configure the LACP parameters for each port and then enable LACP.

interface fastEthernet 33-34
lacp key 13
lacp mode active
lacp timeout-time short
lacp aggregation enable
exit

Hopefully that’s been helpful!

Cheers!

LACP Configuration Examples (Part 1)

Michael McNamara — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:00:46 +0000

I thought I would take a few minutes and outline a few quick LACP configuration examples using Nortel Ethernet Switch 470s, Ethernet Routing Switch 5520s and Ethernet Routing Switch 8600s. Nortel’s LACP implementation conforms to the IEEE 802.3ad standard and is known to inter-operate with the vast majority of major vendors, Cisco, HP, Juniper, Blade Technologies, Brocade, etc.

After writing this article for the past 90 minutes I decided to break it into multiple parts for multiple reasons, firstly because it’s getting long and secondly I don’t want to skimp on the content and want to get it right.

Example 1 – Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 to Ethernet Switch 470 using LACP trunk

In this example we’ll build an LACP trunk between a Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 and a Nortel Ethernet Switch 470. As we all know a picture is worth a thousand words so let’s start with a simple basic diagram of our two switches;

We’ll start with the Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 and I’ll walk you through the commands.

In our first step we’ll create the MultiLink Trunk (MLT) table entry which is required for the ERS 8600, it’s not required for the the majority of Nortel’s other switches. We’ll be using LACP key 33, I chose 33 for no real specific reason. The value is important though because it also needs to be unique (not already used) and needs to be used later in the configuration. This value will identify the ports in the switch that should participate in the trunk configuration. You can have multiple LACP LAGs each with their own key, sometimes referred to as the admin key.

config mlt 13 create
config mlt 13 name "LACP-LAG"
config mlt 13 lacp key 33
config mlt 13 lacp enable

The next step is to configure the actual ports that will make up the trunk. In my example I’m using ports 7/33 and 7/34, again for no specific reason. I’ll enable tagging if for no other reason than to preserve any 802.1q headers such as the Priority Code Point (PCP) which is just the 802.1p bits. I’ll also add the ports to VLAN 99 which we’ll bridge between the two switches;

config ethernet 7/33-7/34 perform-tagging enable
config vlan 1 ports remove 7/33-7/34
config vlan 99 port add 7/33-7/34

With the basic port configuration complete we now need to turn our attention to the LACP specific parameters. We need to use the same key we used to create the MLT above.

config ethernet 7/33-7/34 lacp key 33
config ethernet 7/33-7/34 lacp timeout short
config ethernet 7/33-7/34 lacp aggregation true
config ethernet 7/33-7/34 lacp enable

Let’s not forget to enable LACP globally;

config lacp enable

That’s it.

Hopefully you’ll agree that it isn’t too hard. Now let’s focus on the configuration steps for the Ethernet Switch 470. First we’ll enable tagging on the ports we’re going to use on the Ethernet Switch 470;

vlan ports 33,34 tagging tagAll

Let’s add VLAN 99 to the ports, I’ve already created the VLAN ahead of time.

vlan members add 99 33,34

Now we just need to configure the LACP parameters for each port and then enable LACP.

interface fastEthernet 33-34
lacp key 13
lacp mode active
lacp timeout-time short
lacp aggregation enable
exit

That’s it.

Let’s just make sure that everything is working properly on both the 8600 and the 470 switches.

ERS-8610:6# show mlt info
================================================================================
Mlt Info
================================================================================
PORT    SVLAN  MLT   MLT        PORT         VLAN
MLTID IFINDEX NAME      TYPE    TYPE  ADMIN CURRENT    MEMBERS      IDS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13  6156  LACP-LAG     trunk   normal norm   norm     7/33-7/34         99

MULTICAST             DESIGNATED   LACP      LACP
MLTID IFINDEX  DISTRIBUTION  NT-STG  PORTS        ADMIN     OPER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13     6156     disable      disable  7/33       enable      up

ERS-8610:6# show mlt lacp info
================================================================================
LACP Aggregator Information
================================================================================
MAC               COLLECTOR     AGGR    PORT
MLTID IFINDEX       ADDR              MAXDELAY     ORINDI   MEMBERS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13    6156       00:0f:cd:f1:e1:30    32768        aggr    7/33-7/34

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OPER        MIN        OPERLAST
MLTID IFINDEX     STATE       LINK       CHANGE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13    6156        up          1          6 day(s), 09:54:53

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACTOR      ACTOR          ACTOR      ACTOR
MLTID IFINDEX    SYSPRIO     SYSID         ADMINKEY   OPERKEY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13    6156       32768   00:0f:cd:f1:e0:00    33      33

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PARTNER      PARTNER        PARTNER
MLTID IFINDEX    SYSPRIO      SYSID          OPERKEY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13    6156       32768   00:16:60:80:07:c0    8205

And now on the 470 switch;

ES-470#show mlt
Trunk Name                 Members             Bpdu   Mode   Status
----- -------------------- ------------------- ------ ------ --------
1     Trunk #1             NONE                All    basic  Disabled
2     Trunk #2             NONE                All    basic  Disabled
3     Trunk #3             NONE                All    basic  Disabled
4     Trunk #4             NONE                All    basic  Disabled
5     Trunk #5             NONE                All    basic  Disabled
6     Trunk #6             33-34               Single DynLag Enabled

ES-470#show lacp port 33,34
Admin Oper         Trunk Partner
Port Priority Lacp    A/I Timeout Key   Key   AggrId Id    Port    Status
---- -------- ------- --- ------- ----- ----- ------ ----- ------- ------
33   32768    Active  A   Short   13    8205  8193   6     480     Active
34   32768    Active  A   Short   13    8205  8193   6     481     Active

I think that’s enough for now… there’s a simple LACP configuration between two switches. Please know that you cannot add/remove VLANs from LACP LAG configurations dynamically on Nortel switches. You must disable the LACP configuration and then change the port configuration. So there’s a great benefit to use Nortel’s proprietary MultiLink Trunk (MLT) where possible. Please also note that you don’t need to enable VLACP since LACP already performs the same functionality provided by VLACP.

Please feel free to post specific questions in the discussion forums;
http://forums.networkinfrastructure.info/nortel-ethernet-switching/

Cheers!