H3C S9500E Series Configuration Manual page 11

Device A and Device B in
and two interface cards. The IRF fabric manages both the physical and software resources of Device A
and Device B.
This section uses
Operating mode
A switch can operate in either of the following two modes:
• Standalone mode—The switch cannot form an IRF fabric with other switches.
IRF mode—The switch can connect with other switches to form an IRF fabric.
•
You can change the operating mode of a switch at the command line interface (CLI).
IRF member switch roles
IRF uses two member switch roles: master and slave.
When switches form an IRF fabric, they elect a master to manage the IRF fabric, and the other switches
back up the master. When the master switch fails, another switch is elect as the new master to avoid
service interruption. For more information about master election, see
Roles of MPUs
Each member switch in an IRF fabric has one or two MPUs (also called the supervision engines) and they
play different roles, as follows:
Role
Local active main processing unit (MPU)
Local standby MPU
Global active MPU
Global standby MPU
IRF member ID
You assign the active MPU of each member switch a unique ID to identify the switch in the IRF fabric. This
ID is called the "IRF member ID" of the switch. By default, the standby MPU of a switch is automatically
assigned the same ID as the active MPU. You can change the standby MPU ID of a member switch to
quickly recover IRF configuration for a switch that has only one MPU as described in
configuration fast
IRF port
An IRF port is a logical interface for the internal connection between IRF member switches. Each IRF
member switch has two IRF ports: IRF-port 1 and IRF-port 2. An IRF port is activated when you bind a
physical port to it.
NOTE:
In standalone mode, the IRF ports are named IRF-port1 and IRF-port2. In IRF mode, the IRF ports are
named IRF-port
and IRF-port2 are used.
Figure 2 form an IRF fabric which has four MPUs (one active and three standby)
Figure 2 to explain the concepts that you might encounter when working with IRF.
recovery."
n n
/1 and IRF-port /2, where
Description
The supervisor engine that manages the local switch.
The supervisor engine backs up the local active MPU,
and takes over when the local active MPU fails.
The active MPU of the master switch. You configure and
manage the entire IRF at the command line of the global
active MPU.
All MPUs except the active MPU of the master switch are
global standby MPUs.
n
is the member ID of the switch. In this manual, IRF-port1
3
"Master election."
"Performing IRF