Need help on fibre

[Chuckster]

In Location A & B I have 8 cores that have been terminated. This is 62.5/125.

I have 2 x HP 5604-zl switches and each switch has 2 x 1Gb mini-GBICs.

Fibre connection type is LC/SC

My understanding is that if I have 8 cores in one location and 8 in another, theoretically I can run at 4gig speed, right? (2 cores per connection = 4 fibre patch lead run)

I have connected everything up and when I plug in one fibre lead at each end everything runs fine. As soon as I connect a second fibre lead every LED (e.g. ethernet port) will blink super fast until it will remain constantly lit. Remove the fibre lead so that there is one and all is well again.

Can I not use all the cores that are available to me into the procurves?

If I can, how can I make it run so that it doesn't grind the switches to a complete and utter halt?

[Sylv3r]

It sounds like your creating a network loop - do you run things like spanning tree on your procurve switches? I am not an expert at this, but I don't think you'll be able to go up to 4gig with this scenarion but I could be wrong.

[Chuckster]

I haven't played with the switches properly yet as I just installed them today. Looking at it Spanning Tree is disabled. Should I enable this?

[FreeWill]

Link Aggregation needs to be enabled on the four ports on each switch you wish to combine to be the 4Gb link.

edit: with 2x Fibre modules in each switch you can only combine the two modules on each switch, giving a 2Gb link.

[User3204]

I've been looking at LACP between an HP and an Enterasys switch, I found that both ends are in what they call "LACP Passive", so if you plug in something that is LACP on the other end the switch will work it out.

So what you need to do is set one end up to be LACP active... first, and then the other end goes with the flow.
So for the HP I have (an 2810), I will type:

"int e 21,23 lacp active"

and then save the config.... plug in the other ends and see if it all crashes... I'm doing this as part of a cabinet re-patch this week, so I should get back to you with yay or nay.

[Chuckster]

@User3204, could I not use the web interface to configure the fibre modules or must the config file be altered with?

I'll have a look in the morning to see if there's some way of doing this quite easily.

[IanT]

We have 2Gb (2x 1Gb Fibre Connections) going to each edge switch on-site with spanning tree enabled.

[glennda]

What I would do personally is go into the management interface of the 5406 and setup say ports 1+2+3+4 all as LACP and in Trk 1 then setup the same on the second switch the connect up - this should give you a 4gb link between the switches.

[maniac]

@User3204, could I not use the web interface to configure the fibre modules or must the config file be altered with?

I'll have a look in the morning to see if there's some way of doing this quite easily.

You have to telnet into the procurves to to port trunking - just goto command prompt and type telnet <ip address of switch> and hit enter. then type menu at the prompt and you should figure it out from there. No need to edit the config file manually - it does it all for you from the menu. You can select which ports you want to be part of which trunk group, and the type of trunk it is.

[glennda]

You have to telnet into the procurves to to port trunking - just goto command prompt and type telnet <ip address of switch> and hit enter. then type menu at the prompt and you should figure it out from there.

not the 5406zl though its all done via web interface (mine is anyway) - which i think is what he means as i think the models are 54 and 58

[maniac]

not the 5406zl though its all done via web interface (mine is anyway) - which i think is what he means as i think the models are 54 and 58

They've changed that then as on all my HP switches you can do most things in the web interface, but teaming up ports is one thing that you can't and you have to do it through the console. I use the console to do most of my configuring anyway, as it runs a lot faster than the web interface.

Mike.

[glennda]

They've changed that then as on all my HP switches you can do most things in the web interface, but teaming up ports is one thing that you can't and you have to do it through the console. I use the console to do most of my configuring anyway, as it runs a lot faster than the web interface.

Mike.

The web interface is pretty good - i do have the premium software on it though so it might be different.

i've only had it about three weeks though so i'm still playing!

[maniac]

The web interface is pretty good - i do have the premium software on it though so it might be different.

i've only had it about three weeks though so i'm still playing!

I'm guessing HP finally updated their software! The webinterface on procurves has been the same for years and years, so it was well overdue an update. I'll have to have a look at the web interface on our latest HP switch and see if it's any different to what I'm used to - I don't think I've even called it up as I do everything in the console normally.

Mike.

[Chuckster]

What I would do personally is go into the management interface of the 5406 and setup say ports 1+2+3+4 all as LACP and in Trk 1 then setup the same on the second switch the connect up - this should give you a 4gb link between the switches.

Before your response, I had just simply combined all 4 mini-GBIC ports as one - effectively being setup as LACP. However, I was not able to put it into a trunk group as it did not like it one bit. I followed the same procedure and applied the same to the second switch. It's been well over a week now and all appears to be going well.

[glennda]

Before your response, I had just simply combined all 4 mini-GBIC ports as one - effectively being setup as LACP. However, I was not able to put it into a trunk group as it did not like it one bit. I followed the same procedure and applied the same to the second switch. It's been well over a week now and all appears to be going well.

I had that - its becuase there are two different way's of setting it up - it threw me at first. You have an option of setting as setting LACP as passive/ active or setting LACP/trunk/anotheroption up in the groups with trunk groups/numbers.

The first option is for the switch to dynamically work out which ports are in a trunk the second is for you to manually setup which ports are in a trunk - i went for the second way because its one less job for the switch to be doing when it took 20 secs for me to do it.