Stack Installation Guide for 8100S Series Switches
59
Initialization Process
The switches of the stack synchronize their operations in a five phase
process when they are powered on or reset, and prior to forwarding
network traffic from their ports.
In the first three phases the switches initialize their management software
and features. These phases take a total of approximately 40 seconds.
In the fourth phase, called the discovery process. the switches determine
the number of devices in the stack, the cabling topology, and, in the case
of the duplex-ring topology, the active path through the stacking ports. It is
in this phase that the master switch of the stack is identified. The discovery
process takes approximately 80 seconds.
In the fifth phase, the master switch uses its active boot configuration file in
its file system to configure the settings of all of the switches in the stack.
This phase may take from a few seconds to four minutes, depending on
the size of the stack and the number and complexity of the commands in
the file.
You can monitor the phases by watching the LEDs, which are defined in
Table 16 on page 93, or by attaching a computer with a terminal emulator
program to the Console port of the master switch, and watching the
initialization messages, shown in Figure 38 on page 94 and Figure 39 on
page 95.
The switches of the stack begin forwarding network traffic at the
completion of the fifth phase.