Preventing Forwarding Loops in a VLT Domain
During the bootup of VLT peer switches, a forwarding loop may occur until the VLT configurations are applied on each switch and the
primary/secondary roles are determined.
To prevent the interfaces in the VLT interconnect trunk and RSTP-enabled VLT ports from entering a Forwarding state and creating a
traffic loop in a VLT domain, take the following steps.
1
Configure RSTP in the core network and on each peer switch as described in
Disabling RSTP on one VLT peer may result in a VLT domain failure.
2
Enable RSTP on each peer switch.
PROTOCOL SPANNING TREE RSTP mode
no disable
3
Configure each peer switch with a unique bridge priority.
PROTOCOL SPANNING TREE RSTP mode
bridge-priority
Sample RSTP Configuration
The following is a sample of an RSTP configuration.
Using the example shown in the
(switch or server) with its own RSTP bridge ID. BPDUs generated by an RSTP-enabled access device are only processed by the primary
VLT switch. The secondary VLT switch tunnels the BPDUs that it receives to the primary VLT switch over the VLT interconnect. Only the
primary VLT switch determines the RSTP roles and states on VLT ports and ensures that the VLT interconnect link is never blocked.
In the case of a primary VLT switch failure, the secondary switch starts sending BPDUs with its own bridge ID and inherits all the port
states from the last synchronization with the primary switch. An access device never detects the change in primary/secondary roles and
does not see it as a topology change.
The following examples show the RSTP configuration that you must perform on each peer switch to prevent forwarding loops.
Configure RSTP on VLT Peers to Prevent Forwarding Loops (VLT Peer 1)
Dell_VLTpeer1(conf)#protocol spanning-tree rstp
Dell_VLTpeer1(conf-rstp)#no disable
Dell_VLTpeer1(conf-rstp)#bridge-priority 4096
Configure RSTP on VLT Peers to Prevent Forwarding Loops (VLT Peer 2)
Dell_VLTpeer2(conf)#protocol spanning-tree rstp
Dell_VLTpeer2(conf-rstp)#no disable
Dell_VLTpeer2(conf-rstp)#bridge-priority 0
Configuring VLT
To configure VLT, use the following procedure.
Prerequisites:
Overview
section as a sample VLT topology, the primary VLT switch sends BPDUs to an access device
Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol
Virtual Link Trunking (VLT)
(RSTP).
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