Configuration Guide User guide

FastIron Configuration Guide 265
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Configuring an ICX 6610 IronStack
Configuring an ICX 6610 IronStack
ICX 6610 devices can be stacked using the methods and topologies described in “Supported
IronStack topologies” on page 239. This section describes how stacking ports on the ICX 6610
devices can be trunked.
ICX 6610 trunked stacking ports configuration
A trunk doubles the stacking port bandwidth, and provides better resilience. As long as at least one
port of the trunk is connected properly, the communication between the neighboring units will
work. Traffic is load balanced to the trunk ports. With large number of sessions, traffic should be
well load balanced between 40G and 4*10G ports. Traffic should also be well distributed among
the four sub-ports of a 4*10G port. If a 4*10G sub-port fails due to hardware failure, traffic is
re-distributed to other ports. So, the stack system should still work. Periodical background
diagnosis will print out warning messages that any 4*10G sub-port is down.
When a stacking port goes down, it should not cause stack election or topology change as long as
the other port of the same trunk is up. The traffic interruption time should be sub-second for the
system to detect the port down event and reprogram HW.
Stacking ports are trunked by default in Brocade ICX 6610 Series. You do not need to configure
anything. The system automatically generate trunk configuration. You must enable stacking and
connect cables properly for the stack to work.
The show trunk command shows user-configured or LACP trunks, and does not show stacking
trunks.
At least one port of a trunk must be connected. If multiple ports of a trunk are connected, they
must be connected to the same trunk of other unit. For example, it is invalid that the two ports of a
trunk connect to two different units, or to different trunks of the same unit. Wrong connection
might result in stacking formation failure or other problems. Some invalid connections still form a
stack but with forwarding problems. Stack probe packets use the first connected port of a stacking
trunk. So, as long as the first connected port of a trunk is connected properly, a stack can form.
However, packet forwarding may not work for some streams that are hashed into the wrongly
connected trunk port. In such case, periodical background diagnosis task could detect wrong
connections in about 20 minutes, and it prints error messages.
Configuration notes for ICX stack topologies
• ICX devices do not allow users to change "stack-ports" configuration. Secure-setup sets the
endpoints of a linear FCX stack to data ports, but it does not do so for ICX.
• ICX devices support up to 124 user-configured or LACP trunks. HW trunk ID of 0 is reserved,
IDs 125-127 are used in trunk stacking ports and the internal cascade trunk in the 48-port
unit.
NOTE
ICX 40G and 4x10G ports cannot be used as data ports, even when stacking is not enabled. In
standalone mode, they drop all packets, except stacking probe packets. Secure Setup and unit
replacement can therefore still discover a standalone unit.