Cisco Switch: How To Remove A Switch From A Stack (3750-X In This Example)

The other day, I needed to remove two switches from a stack of Cisco 3750-Xs.  Not hard to do really, but most people think you can just unconnect the stack cables on the back of the units and reconfigure the last cable to go back to the master.  Well, that is ok to do, somewhat, and will work, but the master still thinks the switches will come back sometime.  They do show as removed, but what we really want to do is to 'completly' remove them.  You do this with the 'no switch member# provision' command.  Below, I removed switch 5 and 6 from the stack.  Dont forget to do a 'wr mem' when you are done.  The config will still be there until you do.  You wont want that.

SwitchStack#sh switch
Switch/Stack Mac Address : 10f3.11cb.0700
                                           H/W   Current
Switch#  Role   Mac Address     Priority Version  State
----------------------------------------------------------
*1       Master 10f3.11cb.0700     15     3       Ready
 2       Member 7cad.7494.7a80     10     3       Ready
 3       Member 7cad.748a.b300     9      3       Ready
 4       Member 7cad.7472.9b00     8      3       Ready
 5       Member 0000.0000.0000     0      0       Removed
 6       Member 0000.0000.0000     0      0       Removed


SwitchStack(config)#no switch 6 provision
SwitchStack(config)#exit
SwitchStack#sh switch
Switch/Stack Mac Address : 10f3.11cb.0700
                                           H/W   Current
Switch#  Role   Mac Address     Priority Version  State
----------------------------------------------------------
*1       Master 10f3.11cb.0700     15     3       Ready
 2       Member 7cad.7494.7a80     10     3       Ready
 3       Member 7cad.748a.b300     9      3       Ready
 4       Member 7cad.7472.9b00     8      3       Ready
 5       Member 0000.0000.0000     0      0       Removed


SwitchStack#
SwitchStack#sh switch
Switch/Stack Mac Address : 10f3.11cb.0700
                                           H/W   Current
Switch#  Role   Mac Address     Priority Version  State
----------------------------------------------------------
*1       Master 10f3.11cb.0700     15     3       Ready
 2       Member 7cad.7494.7a80     10     3       Ready
 3       Member 7cad.748a.b300     9      3       Ready
 4       Member 7cad.7472.9b00     8      3       Ready
 5       Member 0000.0000.0000     0      0       Removed


SwitchStack#config t
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
SwitchStack(config)#no switch 5 provision
SwitchStack(config)#exit
SwitchStack#sh switch
Switch/Stack Mac Address : 10f3.11cb.0700
                                           H/W   Current
Switch#  Role   Mac Address     Priority Version  State
----------------------------------------------------------
*1       Master 10f3.11cb.0700     15     3       Ready
 2       Member 7cad.7494.7a80     10     3       Ready
 3       Member 7cad.748a.b300     9      3       Ready
 4       Member 7cad.7472.9b00     8      3       Ready


SwitchStack#