Basic Concepts; Irf Member Roles; Irf Member Id; Irf Port - HP 5130 EI series Configuration Manual

Figure 1 IRF application scenario

Basic concepts

This section describes the basic concepts you might encounter when you work with IRF.

IRF member roles

IRF uses two member roles: master and standby (called subordinate throughout the documentation).
When devices form an IRF fabric, they elect a master to manage and control the IRF fabric, and all the
other devices back up the master. When the master device fails, the other devices elect a new master
automatically. For more information about master election, see

IRF member ID

An IRF fabric uses member IDs to uniquely identify and manage its members. This member ID information
is included as the first part of interface numbers and file paths to uniquely identify interfaces and files in
an IRF fabric. For more information about interface and file path naming, see
conventions" and
If two devices have the same IRF member ID, they cannot form an IRF fabric. If the IRF member ID of a
device has been used in an IRF fabric, the device cannot join the fabric.

IRF port

An IRF port is a logical interface for the connection between IRF member devices. Every IRF-capable
device supports two IRF ports. The IRF ports are named IRF-port n/1 and IRF-port n/2, where n is the
member ID of the device. The two IRF ports are referred to as IRF-port 1 and IRF-port 2 in this book.
"File system naming conventions."
"Master
2
election."
"Interface naming