I noticed some shiny Aruba switches on the bench today, they were for a job my colleague is working on. (Note: Each switch in a stack should be the same, so these will need two stacks!)
I work on the occasional HP/Aruba core switch, but it’s been a while since I did any work on distribution switches like these. The first thing I learned, was there’s no dedicated stacking cable for them. They simply use a 10Gb (Twinax / DAC) cable. Which I suppose is pretty straight forward, but it means you lose an SFP+ port (which is a bit pants).*
*Note: You can stack with 1GB cables, but you can’t mix and match!
So I said “Give me a shoult when you stack them and I’ll take a nosey!”
Solution
In the ‘land of Aruba’ this is called creating a VSF (Virtual Switching Fabric). As you can see from the photo, these are 2930F Switches, and you can stack up to four switches in a VSF. The same stacking method is used on the 5400R (v3) and 5412, where you can link two 5400R or 5412’s).
Also this method is NOT to be confused with ‘Fabric Stacking’ which is available on the 2920,2930M,3800,3810M models, (that is more like Cisco FlexStack, with a dedicated 100Gb stack cable).
So, assuming you have your switch new and fresh, connect in with your console cable, and dedicate a port to use for VSF.
Aruba-2930F-24G-PoEP-4SFPP# conf t Aruba-2930F-24G-PoEP-4SFPP(config)# vsf member 1 link 1 ethernet 25 All configuration on this port has been removed and port is placed in VSF mode.
Then place the switch into a VSF domain
Aruba-2930F-24G-PoEP-4SFPP(config)# vsf enable domain 1 This will save the current configuration and reboot the switch.
The switch will ask for a reboot, let it do so.
Repeat the procedure on the second switch, (but this will be member 2).
Aruba-2930F-24G-PoEP-4SFPP# conf t Aruba-2930F-24G-PoEP-4SFPP(config)# vsf member 1 link 1 ethernet 25 All configuration on this port has been removed and port is placed in VSF mode. Aruba-2930F-24G-PoEP-4SFPP(config)# vsf enable domain 1 This will save the current configuration and reboot the switch.
Once again let the switch reboot.
Post reboot you will see the ports are ‘re-numbered’ 1/{port-number} on vsf member 1, 2/{port-number} on vsf member 2 etc.
Aruba-2930F-24G-PoEP-4SFPP# show interfaces
Status and Counters - Port Counters
Flow Bcast
Port Total Bytes Total Frames Errors Rx Drops Tx Ctrl Limit
------------ -------------- -------------- --------- --------- ---- -----
1/1 0 0 0 0 off 0
1/2 0 0 0 0 off 0
1/3 0 0 0 0 off 0
1/4 0 0 0 0 off 0
<---------------Output Removed For The Sake Of Brevity-------------->
1/10 0 0 0 0 off 0
1/11 0 0 0 0 off 0
1/12 0 0 0 0 off 0
1/13 0 0 0 0 off 0
<---------------Output Removed For The Sake Of Brevity-------------->
1/19 0 0 0 0 off 0
1/20 0 0 0 0 off 0
1/21 0 0 0 0 off 0
1/25 1,496,823,949 23,354,845 0 0 off 0
<---------------Output Removed For The Sake Of Brevity-------------->
2/1 0 0 0 0 off 0
2/2 0 0 0 0 off 0
2/3 0 0 0 0 off 0
2/4 0 0 0 0 off 0
<---------------Output Removed For The Sake Of Brevity-------------->
2/22 0 0 0 0 off 0
2/23 0 0 0 0 off 0
2/24 0 0 0 0 off 0
2/25 1,536,016,322 23,966,915 0 0 off 0
2/26 0 0 0 0 off 0
2/27 0 0 0 0 off 0
2/28 0 0 0 0 off 0
If you need to Stack 3 or 4 Switches then you need to add a second link, and create a ring;
i.e.
- Switch 2 (2nd link now to switch 3) vsf member 2 link 2 ethernet 26
- Switch 3 (1st link to switch 2 ) vsf member 2 link 1 ethernet 25
- Switch 3 (2nd link to switch 4 ) vsf member 2 link 2 ethernet 26
- Switch 4 (1st link to switch 3 ) vsf member 4 link 1 ethernet 25
- Switch 4 (2nd link to switch 1 ) vsf member 4 link 2 ethernet 26
Useful Aruba VSF Commands
show vsf or show vsf detail : Shows the list of provisioned chassis members.
show vsf link or show vsf link detail : Shows the state of vsf links for all members.
show vsf lldp-mad status : Shows LLDP MAD (Multi-Active Detection).
show vsftrunk-designated-forwarder : Shows designated forwarders for each trunk.