Administrator Guide

A file is generated to indicate that the system is undergoing a fast boot, which is used after the system comes up.
After the Dell EMC Networking OS image is loaded and activated, and the appropriate software components come up, the
following additional actions are performed:
● If a database of dynamic ARP entries is present on the flash drive, that information is read and the ARP entries are restored;
the entries are installed on the switch as soon as possible. At the same time, the entries are changed to an initial (“aged
out”) state so that they are refreshed (and flushed if not learnt again). The database on the flash card is also deleted
instantaneously.
● The system ensures that local routes known to BGP are imported into BGP and advertised to peers as quickly as possible. In
this process, any advertisement-interval configuration is not considered (only during the initial period when the peer comes
up).
If you do not configure BGP GR, you must configure the peering with BGP keepalive and hold timers to be as high as possible
(depending on your network deployment and the scaled parameters or sessions) to enable the connection to be active until the
system re-initializes the switch, causing the links to adjacent devices to go down. If the BGP sessions are disabled before the
re-initialization of the switch occurs because of the peer timing out, traffic disruption occurs from that point onwards, even if
the system continues to maintain valid routing information in the hardware and is capable of forwarding traffic.
LACP and IPv6 Routing
The following IPv6-related actions are performed during the reload phase:
● The system saves all the dynamic ND cache entries to a database on the flash card. After the system comes back online, and
the Dell EMC Networking OS image is loaded and the corresponding software applications on the system are also activated,
the following processes specific to IPv6 are performed:
● If a database of dynamic ND entries is present on the flash, the information is read and the ND entries are restored (to
the IPv6 subsystem as well as the kernel); the entries are installed on the switch as quickly as possible. At the same time,
the entries are changed to an initial (“incomplete”) state so that they are refreshed (and flushed, if not learnt again). The
database on the flash is also deleted immediately.
● To ensure that the adjacent systems do not time out and purge their ND cache entries, the age-out time or the reachable
time for ND cache entries must be configured to be as high as necessary. Dell EMC recommends that you configure the
reachable timer to be 300 seconds or longer.
BGP Graceful Restart
When the system contains one or more BGP peerings configured for BGP graceful restart, fast boot performs the following
actions:
● A closure of the TCP sessions is performed on all sockets corresponding to BGP sessions on which Graceful Restart has
been negotiated. This behavior is to force the peer to perform the helper role so that any routes advertised by the restarting
system are retained and the peering session will not go down due to BGP Hold timeout.
● Termination of TCP connections is not initiated on BGP sessions without GR because such a closure might cause the peer to
immediately purge routes learnt from the restarting system.
● When BGP is started, it sets the R-bit and F-bit in the GR capability when bringing up the session with peers for which BGP
GR has been configured. This is the standard behavior of a restarting system and ensures that the peer continues to retain
the routes previously advertised by the system.
● The system delays sending the BGP End-of-RIB notification to peers with whom BGP GR has been negotiated to ensure that
the local routes of the system are advertised to the peers, if required by the configuration.
● If BGP GR is enabled on any peering session, the timeout values used for the BGP hold timer do not take effect.
Cold Boot Caused by Power Cycling the System
When you perform a power-cycle operation on a system that is configured with the optimized booting functionality, the system
goes through its regular boot sequence even if it is configured for fast boot. When the system comes up, it is expected that
there will be no dynamic ARP or ND database to restore. The system boot up mode will not be fast boot and
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Flex Hash and Optimized Boot-Up