Initial Installation And Power-Up Of A Stack - Dell PowerConnect PC7024 Technical White Paper

Stacking Dell PowerConnect 7000 Series Switches

Initial Installation and Power-up of a Stack

Follow these instructions to create a stack:
NOTE: Install units in a rack whenever possible to prevent the units and cables from being disturbed.
1. Install all stacking cables. Fully connect all cables, including the redundant stack link.
CAUTION! We highly recommend that a redundant link be installed to provide stack resiliency.
2. Select a unit to be the manager unit. Power this unit up first.
3. Monitor the console port on the manager unit. The unit will automatically become a manager
unit. If not, renumber the unit as desired. The Stack Management > Unit Configuration page in
the web interface or the switch renumber command in the CLI can be used to change the
unit number.
4. If desired, pre-configure other units to be added to the stack. This is not usually necessary.
5. Power on a second unit, making sure it is adjacent (directly connected) to the manager unit.
This ensures the second unit comes up as a member of the stack, not as the manager of a
separate stack.
6. Monitor the manager unit to see that the second unit joins the stack. Use the show switch
command to determine when the unit joins the stack. It will be assigned a unit number (unit
#2, if it has the default configuration). The output of the show switch command should
indicate the unit status as "OK" if the member has been successfully added to the stack. If the
unit status is "code mismatch" and stack auto-upgrade is disabled, then use the copy image
unit command to update the code on the unit. If the unit status is "Cfg Mismatch", then use
the no member <unit-number> command to resolve the issue.
7. If desired, renumber this stack unit using the switch renumber command.
8. Repeat steps # 4 through # 6 to add additional members to the stack. Always power on a unit
directly connected to the units already in the stack.
9. Enter the show switch stack-port counters command on the manager and see if there
are any stack port errors being reported. Replace the stacking cables/modules if stack errors
are being reported and begin the power-up sequences again for the affected units and any
downstream units.
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