Primary Management Module Selection - Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 6450 User Manual

Managing OmniSwitch 6450 Stacks

Primary Management Module Selection

For a stack of OmniSwitch 6450 switches to operate as a virtual chassis, there must be a mechanism for
dynamically selecting the switch within the stack that will assume the primary management role.
OmniSwitch 6450 switches use three different methods for selecting the primary switch. These methods
are:
•
Chassis MAC address
•
Saved slot number
•
Chassis uptime
Note. Information on secondary management module selection is provided on
dynamic assignment of idle module roles is provided on
Using the Chassis MAC Address
By default, the primary management role will be given to the switch with the lowest chassis MAC
address. However, for this to occur, all switches in the stack must be booted within 15 seconds of each
other. In addition, switches in the stack must have no preconfigured slot information. Because of these
two conditions, the MAC address method for selecting the primary module usually occurs with new "out
of the box" switches, or switches from which any preconfigured slot information has been cleared.
For more information on using the lowest MAC address to determine the primary switch in a stack, refer
to the diagram below:
00:d0:95:b2:3c:8e
00:d0:95:b2:2a:ab
00:d0:95:b2:1c:ff
00:d0:95:b2:5b:8d
00:d0:95:b2:3c:8e
00:d0:95:b2:2a:ab
Primary Module
00:d0:95:b2:5b:8d
Primary Management Module Selection Using the Lowest Chassis MAC Address
Note. During the boot process, all other switches in the stack are also dynamically assigned unique slot
numbers. As with the primary switch, these slot numbers are saved to the boot.slot.cfg file, located in the
/flash file directory of each switch. For more information on dynamic slot number assignment, refer to
"Slot Numbering" on page
OmniSwitch 6450 Hardware Users Guide
1
A stack of four OmniSwitch 6450 switches is
booted. All switches are powered on within 15 sec-
onds of each other. In addition, there is no precon-
2
When the stack is booted, system software detects
the lowest MAC address. In this stacked configura-
tion, the lowest MAC address is 00:d0:95:b2:1c:ff.
3
The system software immediately assigns the cor-
responding switch the primary management role.
When the switch is assigned as primary, it is also
dynamically assigned the lowest slot number in
the stack—i.e., slot 1. This slot number informa-
6-20.
July 2012
page
page 6-12.
Roles Within the Stack
6-10. Information on
page 6-7