Connecting Irf Ports; Irf Link Redundancy; Multichassis Link Aggregation; Feature Compatibility And Configuration Restrictions - HP FlexFabric 12900 Series Configuration Manual

Connecting IRF ports

When you connect two neighboring IRF members, follow these restrictions and guidelines:
You must connect the physical interfaces of IRF-port 1 on one member device to the physical
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interfaces of IRF-port 2 on the other device.
Do not connect physical interfaces of both IRF ports on one member device to the physical
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interfaces of both IRF ports on the other device.

IRF link redundancy

When you configure an IRF fabric, follow these link redundancy restrictions and guidelines:
• For link redundancy and load sharing, bind a maximum of eight physical interfaces to one IRF port.
As a best practice to prevent a card removal from causing an IRF split, bind physical interfaces on
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multiple cards to one IRF port.

Multichassis link aggregation

For high availability, connect a downstream device to each IRF member device, and assign the links to
one link aggregation group.

Feature compatibility and configuration restrictions

ECMP
All member devices in the IRF fabric must have the same setting for the maximum number of ECMP routes.
For more information about configuring ECMP, see Layer 3—IP Routing Configuration Guide.
MDC
If the IRF fabric splits, do not change the MDC settings on any IRF member devices before they reunite.
Before you use the undo mdc command to delete an MDC, remove IRF port bindings for the physical
interfaces on the MDC and save the configuration. To identify physical interfaces bound to IRF ports, use
the display irf link command.
System operating mode
All member devices in the IRF fabric must work in the same system operating mode (set by using the
system-working-mode command). For more information about the system operating mode, see
Fundamentals Configuration Guide.
TRILL
If TRILL is used, configure the irf mac-address persistent always command to retain the IRF bridge MAC
address permanently. The persistence setting ensures that other devices in the TRILL network can maintain
correct network topology after the bridge MAC address owner leaves the IRF fabric.

Configuration backup

HP recommends that you back up the next-startup configuration file on a device before adding the device
to an IRF fabric as a subordinate.
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