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  • 1.  Connecting 2 switches via 10G port. Spanning Tree option is the way??

    Posted 06-27-2021 05:19 PM
    Hello

       I have x2 / 48 port 1930 instant on switches and I need to connect them together to act as one. Does anyone have a link or can post here the way to do it with steps?

    Thank you in advance.

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    Jim tsoutsouras
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  • 2.  RE: Connecting 2 switches via 10G port. Spanning Tree option is the way??

    Posted 06-28-2021 01:51 PM
    Hi,

    What you need is to stack (backplane via stacking modules or virtual stacking via the front ports). Others may correct me, but I don't think that stacking is an option for the Aruba Instant On switches.

    As for the question in the title, Spanning Tree has nothing to do with stacking.

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    Valentin Voica
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  • 3.  RE: Connecting 2 switches via 10G port. Spanning Tree option is the way??

    Posted 06-28-2021 04:55 PM
    .Hi back at you ....... yet again, still think that it can be done and the only way is via Spanning tree,. 

      Also an answer for a ticket in HPe/Aruba team ... finding it a little abstractive and general though ....

    <<In the local mode(using its IP address), we have to manage both the switches separately.
    Since you have queried for the knob spanning tree, I could conclude that the switches are managed using local mode.
    Changes to the spanning tree knob is not required, the switch would be using MSTP. If you would like to change any configuration, you could change the STP mode.>>

    New Edit:    
    Now that I come to think more about it, 1930 series and almost all switches support uplink ports (managed or not).
    According to the definition of an up link port (An uplink port is a specially designed port found on some pieces of networking devices to allow these devices to communicate with each other. The uplink port on a network switch is used to reverse the transmit and receive circuits on a regular twisted-pair Ethernet cable. Its main purpose is to allow the direct connection of two like devices, such as two switches.) this is the only function that I need  to make 2 switches with 48 ports act as a96 port switch. 
    Is that accomplished by uplink, stacking , Spanning Tree. Unfortunately, help files, all they do is explain abbreviations like a dictionary and not giving examples in order for someone to understand better the terms,.   Can you help clarify these 3 terms and which one do I need? 

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    Jim tsoutsouras
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  • 4.  RE: Connecting 2 switches via 10G port. Spanning Tree option is the way??

    Posted 06-29-2021 03:58 AM
    A good link about Stack is the following https://www.computernetworkingnotes.com/ccna-study-guide/switch-stacking-explained-with-benefits.html
    and according to that one 1930 don t have a special stacking module (which also requires special stacking cables). So stack is out of the way.
         In order to use the uplink port, the same link above states that there is a high change that that uplink port will be blocked. So in order to use the 10G ports (one of them) as an uplink should I
    -setup that port with specific options in the gui?
    -do I need to turn off / disable STP in order not to block the uplink port. If yes what about this one then
         <<You really, really do not want to disable STP where you connect switches to other switches.
              That is the entire purpose of STP. If you disable STP, and there is a problem, it will really be too late
              because your entire network could crash when you notice it, and recovering from a broadcast storm is no fun at all.
    >>
      
    PS Still need to figure out what spanning tree does....at least for now all I get is helping prevent network loops between switches by dropping packages after a specified period of time, managing traffic paths the best possible way.

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    Jim tsoutsouras
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  • 5.  RE: Connecting 2 switches via 10G port. Spanning Tree option is the way??

    Posted 06-29-2021 02:44 PM
    OK, first of all, you do not always need a stacking module to stack switches (back-plane stacking).

    Stacking can also be done "virtually". When you stack the switches virtually, you will use at least two interfaces on each switch to connect them together; this group of interfaces is called a Link Aggregation (Lagg). Depending on hardware, you can use different types of virtual stacking: VSF (Virtual Switching Fabric) and VSX (Virtual Switching Extension).

    When two or more switches are stacked they are logically seen as one, they will share only one management IP address, and the ports will be identified as Eth1/1, Eth1/2 ... Eth1/48 for the first stack member and Eth2/1, Eth2/2 ... Eth2/48 for the second stack member, and so on. In other words, you managed the switches the same way as you would manage one switch only.

    There are no other ways to stack Aruba switches (Instant ON, ArubaOS, or ArubaOS-CX).

    STP, or Spanning Tree Protocol, is a protocol which prevents loops in the network topology. When you virtually stack switches, they will be connected to each other using more than one cable and it may seem there is a loop, so you think: "oh, I need STP to prevent loops", but that is not true - as soon as the Link Aggregations groups are configured, the protocol used is LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol) which makes that "loops" not being "loops" so STP is not needed.

    Again, STP has nothing to do with stacking switches, nor with facilitating a way to treat more switches as one.

    To summarise, there is no way you can stack, nor treat more switches as one in Aruba Instant On "world". At least, not yet.

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    Valentin Voica
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  • 6.  RE: Connecting 2 switches via 10G port. Spanning Tree option is the way??

    Posted 06-29-2021 03:39 PM
    Nice info up there (specially for the virtual stacking and how the ports are named in a stack array) except the fact you have misunderstood what I am trying to do at first place (and the fault is on me and the title as well because I didn't explain it correctly).

       First things first. Lets forget the stack . i am aware now that it isnt supported in our switches and I couldnt care less to tell you the truth for 2 switches to treat them as one from one gui interface which corresponds to the root bridge/switch. There lies the first misunderstandment. I dont care at all if I l be able to manage the 2 switches as one (on the title though I clearly stating that i would like that) The only thing I want is to connect them together with the 10GbE connection (which I did today with the arrival of my 10GBe DAC cable) Upon that connection I d like to know how to configure (if configuration is needed at all) for those 10GBe ports of each switch.

      The problem I had was when used in both switches the same port (51 on first and second) the first switch was seeing Topology Change Count το one connection and the second switch had Topology Change Count  to 2 connections. After changing the port one first switch to  a different one (50) then the first switch showed Topology Change Count to 2 connections the second switch Topology Change Count to  3 connections. This has to do with Global settings at Spanning Tree tab.

    Also in logs I had
    51 of instance 1: STP status Forwarding
    50 of instance 1: STP status Forwarding
    That has to do with MSTP and I ll come to that below

       And  lastly the Spanning Protocol. I ve read several document since yesterday and came into the conclusion that it would be better to be turned on and MSTP which is the newer version of the others. On top of that your statement <<<<When you virtually stack switches, they will be connected to each other using more than one cable and it may seem there is a loop, so you think: "oh, I need STP to prevent loops>>>> makes me also think that if I would use (still using one DAC) 2 DAC cables as uplinks the same problem would also rise???? So enabling MSTP would be wise.

       If the answer is yes do I have to enable (of course the same verison) os MSTP in both switches??
       - manually set bridge id to the switch I need to be root a lower value
       - use as Configuration Name the same for both switches? (this came taken  an aruba faq documention)
       - use as Configuration Revision Level same value ? (this taken from an aruba faq documention)
    like below

     i dont know what to fill in the MSTP configuration though for the best possible results


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    Jim tsoutsouras
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  • 7.  RE: Connecting 2 switches via 10G port. Spanning Tree option is the way??

    Posted 07-01-2021 03:41 AM

    If you connect the two switches using one port on each switch only, then you don't have to configure Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) at all, just leave the default settings.

    Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP), and Per VLAN Spanning Tree Protocol (PVST) are used only when you have more than one VLAN configured on the switches. Even then, it is not necessary to configure MSTP or PVST unless you have many switches connected in some very unusual way.

    You should be more concerned about preventing accidental loops, when users may just randomly plug network cables into switch interfaces, or bring some alien switches into your network creating loops. In this case you just have to enable "root guard" and "BPDU protection".



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    Valentin Voica
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