Information About Etherchannels; Understanding Etherchannels; Compatibility Requirements; Configuring Etherchannels - Cisco N5010P-N2K-BE Software Configuration Manual

Information About EtherChannels

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Understanding EtherChannels

Using EtherChannels, Cisco NX-OS provides wider bandwidth, redundancy, and load balancing across
the channels.
You can collect up to eight ports into a static EtherChannel or you can enable the Link Aggregation
Control Protocol (LACP). Configuring EtherChannels with LACP requires slightly different steps than
configuring static EtherChannels (see the
Cisco NX-OS does not support Port Aggregation Protocol (PAgP) for EtherChannels.
Note
An EtherChannel bundles individual links into a channel group to create a single logical link that
provides the aggregate bandwidth of up to eight physical links. If a member port within an EtherChannel
fails, traffic previously carried over the failed link switches to the remaining member ports within the
EtherChannel.
Each port can be in only one EtherChannel. All the ports in an EtherChannel must be compatible; they
must use the same speed and operate in full-duplex mode (see the
on page
the on channel mode; you cannot change this mode without enabling LACP (see the
Modes" section on page
You cannot change the mode from ON to Active or from ON to Passive.
Note
You can create an EtherChannel directly by creating the port-channel interface, or you can create a
channel group that acts to aggregate individual ports into a bundle. When you associate an interface with
a channel group, Cisco NX-OS creates a matching EtherChannel automatically if the EtherChannel does
not already exist. You can also create the EtherChannel first. In this instance, Cisco NX-OS creates an
empty channel group with the same channel number as the EtherChannel and takes the default
configuration.
Note The EtherChannel is operationally up when at least one of the member ports is up and that port's status
is channeling. The EtherChannel is operationally down when all member ports are operationally down.

Compatibility Requirements

When you add an interface to a channel group, Cisco NX-OS checks certain interface attributes to ensure
that the interface is compatible with the channel group. Cisco NX-OS also checks a number of
operational attributes for an interface before allowing that interface to participate in the port-channel
aggregation.
The compatibility check includes the following operational attributes:
•
•
•
•
•
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch CLI Software Configuration Guide
11-2
11-2). When you are running static EtherChannels, without LACP, the individual links are all in
11-6).
Port mode
Access VLAN
Trunk native VLAN
Allowed VLAN list
Speed
"Configuring EtherChannels" section on page
"Compatibility Requirements" section
Chapter 11

Configuring EtherChannels

11-7).
"Port-Channel
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