Monday, April 14, 2014

Brocade ICX Switch: "Command Not Allowed in NI style LAG CLI mode" - Link Aggregation Groups (LAG) Configuration And Notes - The New Port-Channel

Im always a fan of bonding ports together for more throughput.  I mean, when you have capability to do so and the port density, why not?  1 Gig is not as fast as 2 Gig, right?  In the 8.X code that Brocade has come out with, they have retired the "trunk" command.  I found this out the hard way when I upgraded some switches to the 8.X code and then tried to configure the bonded ports.  This is what I got in return:
"Command Not Allowed in NI style LAG CLI mode".
Bummer.  I have no idea what that means, but I do know it means that I cant configure trunks like I used to. Here was the old config way that I tried in the 8.X code:
trunk ethe 1/1/1 to ethe 1/1/4
 port-name "TO VM SWITCHES" ethernet 1/1/1
port-name "TO VM SWITCHES" ethernet 1/1/2
port-name "TO VM SWITCHES" ethernet 1/1/3
port-name "TO VM SWITCHES" ethernet 1/1/4
trunk deploy
 I guess its time to move to another method.
Link Aggregation Groups.  Thats the way now in the 8.X code.  Here is how I configured the bonded ports:

6610(config)# lag LAG01 static id 1
6610(config-lag-LAG01)#ports ethernet 1/1/1 to 1/1/4
6610(config-lag-LAG01)#primary-port 1/1/1
6610(config-lag-LAG01)#deploy
This bonded 4 1Gig ports together for a total of 4Gig.  I like that, and when connecting uplinks, that can be important.  When you have a switch that has 1Gig ports already, you NEED your uplinks to be faster than your server/pc ports.  
When I do a 'show run', this is what it looks like:
lag "LAG01" static id 1
 ports ethernet 1/1/1 to ethernet 1/1/4
 primary-port 1/1/1
 deploy
 port-name Uplink ethernet 1/1/1


So, here are some notes I found on Brocade's site when I had to look up this configuration.
The new LAG configuration procedures supersede the previous configurations procedures for LAGs and Dynamic Link Aggregation. When a Brocade device is upgraded to 08.0.00a any configurations for LAGs or Dynamic Link Aggregation defined in releases prior to 08.0.00a will be converted to a 08.0.00a (and later) compatible LAG configuration. Details about how this conversion is performed are described in “Migrating from a previous release to 08.0.00a LAG or LACP configuration”. 

Brocade software supports the IEEE 802.3ad standard for link aggregation.
This standard describes the Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP), a mechanism for allowing ports on both sides of a redundant link to form a trunk link (aggregate link), without the need for manual configuration of the ports into trunk groups.  When you enable link aggregation on a group of ports, the ports can negotiate with the ports at the remote end of the links to establish trunk groups.


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