Multichassis Link Aggregation; Feature And Irf Mode Compatibility; Mad And Irf Domain Restrictions; Mdc And Irf Merge Restrictions - HP 10500 Series Configuration Manual

Physical ports bound to an IRF port can be located on different cards.
•
• HP recommends using multicard IRF links to prevent a card removal from causing an IRF split.

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 and IRF mode compatibility

To form an IRF fabric:
• All member devices in the IRF fabric must work in the same system operating mode. For more
information about the system operating mode, see Fundamentals Configuration Guide.
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.

MAD and IRF domain restrictions

When you configure an IRF fabric, follow these MAD and IRF domain restrictions and guidelines:
If LACP MAD runs between two IRF fabrics, assign each fabric a unique IRF domain ID. (For BFD
•
MAD, this task is optional.)
An IRF fabric has only one IRF domain ID.
•
You can change the IRF domain ID by using the irf domain or mad enable command. The IRF
domain IDs configured with these commands overwrite each other.
In an MDC environment, if you change the IRF domain ID in one MDC, the IRF domain IDs in
all other MDCs change automatically. The irf domain command is available only on the default
MDC. The mad enable command is available on any MDCs.
LACP MAD handles collisions in a different way than BFD MAD. To avoid conflicts, do not enable
•
LACP MAD together with BFD MAD in an IRF fabric.
To exclude a port from the shutdown action that is executed when an IRF fabric transits to the
•
Recovery state, use the mad exclude interface command. To bring up a port after the IRF fabric
transits to the Recovery state, you must use the mad restore command to activate the entire IRF fabric,
and not the undo shutdown command.

MDC and IRF merge restrictions

If the IRF fabric splits, do not change the MDC and IRF settings on any IRF member devices before they
reunite.

Other configuration guidelines

If a subordinate device uses the same next-startup configuration file name as the master device, the
•
file might be overwritten depending on your configuration file management settings. To continue to
use the configuration file after removing the device from the IRF fabric, back up the file before setting
up the IRF fabric.
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