Procurve 2524 Trunking

[as1981]

All,

Apologies for the newbie question, I just want to confirm that I've read the docs correctly.

On a 2524 I don't think it's possible for a fibre and RJ45 connetion to be trunked? Does anyone know the first switch in the Procurve range that supports this?

Also, again just to confirm what I think, if one connection on a trunk fails then will the trunk continue to function?

Thanks and as I said apologies for the newbie questions.

Andrew

 

[LawnBoy]

The manual states that all ports in a trunk group must have the same speed, duplex, and flow control settings. There is no stated restriction on the type of interface, so I would say that yes, you can trunk a 100Mb fiber with a copper port running at 100Mb. If you're feeding 1Gb on the fiber then no, it will not trunk with one of the 10/100Mb copper ports.

Any link of a trunk can fail without affecting any other part of the trunk, however trunking is not designed as a fail-over mechanism. If you have 2 100Mb links trunked, you then have 200Mb of throughput. Trunking is intended to increase bandwidth.

If all you want to do is to create a fail-over link, you should look into Spanning Tree Protocol. It allows you to have two connections between switches, one of which is disabled. When the primary fails, the secondary link is enabled automatically. (and actually you will want to deploy RSTP, a patched version of STP)

Never ever ever plug two cables between two switches without running STP. It will bring your network to a complete standstill immediately...

"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[as1981]

Many thanks for your help and detailed response. Spanning tree is enabled on all our switches, precisely for the reason you mentioned...we've had too many managers decide they know what they are doing and bring the whole system down. However, we haven't actively use it by delibrately having two links between any two switches until now.

I would like to use trunking in this particular example for the increased speed but failover is the most important reason for putting in the two links. Do we lose anything by using trunking rather than just STP or the fact that we would be using both?

Thanks again

Andrew

 

[LawnBoy]

The only real difference is that with STP you only have 1 link active at any given time, but with trunking and STP you can have up to 4 links working simultaneously.

I don't see any disadvantages to running trunking with STP.

I've always prefered static LACP for my trunks. I find it easiest to configure.


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[as1981]

Thank you.

Andrew

 

[manu21]

Hi, we have a HP2626 switch. We are seeing the following error message: "...HP Procurve switch trap - tftp: SENT error:1, msg: File not found."

We are seeing these TFTP traps/alarms that are getting posted numerous times per hour, the alarms are a nuisance, and are not causing system problems. I am confused as to why these alarms are showing up for no reason. Is there a way to clear this alarm, and what is causing this alarm to post in the first place.

Any help is highly appreciated. thanks.

 

[LawnBoy]

You should create a new thread since you have a different problem than this thread is about...

Anyway, tftp is the method whereby you update the firmware in your switches. Apparently you have a policy being enforced that is trying to update the switches, but can't find the appropriate file.


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[as1981]

The manual for the switch (ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/networking/software/2500-MgmtConfig-Oct2005-59692354.pdf) - Top of page 124 and other places

says that trunks can not include different media types. I thought media types was referring to the interface type but post 2 in this thread confirms I am wrong. What is it referring to?

Thanks

Andrew

 

[LawnBoy]

Perhaps I have an old manual. Does it work?


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes