Brocade Communications Systems 53-1003126-02 Configuration management for trunk areas

Port trunking is enabled between two separate Fabric OS switches that support trunking and where all

the ports on each switch reside in the same quad and are running the same speed. Trunk groups form

when you connect two or more cables on one Fabric OS switch to another Fabric OS switch with ports

in the same port group or quad. A port group or a quad is a set of sequential ports; for example, ports

0-3. The Brocade 300 switch supports a trunk group with up to eight ports. The trunking groups are

based on the user port number, with eight contiguous ports as one group, such as 0-7, 8-15, 16-23

and up to the number of ports on the switch.

Use the following steps to set up trunking.

1. Connect to the switch and log in using an account assigned to the admin role.

2. Ensure that both modules (Edge switch and the switch running in AG mode) have the trunking

licenses enabled.

3. Ensure that the ports have trunking enabled by issuing the portcfgshow command. If trunking is

not enabled, issue the portcfgtrunkport [slot/] port, 1 command.

4. Ensure that the ports within a trunk have the same speed.

5. Ensure that the ports within an ASIC trunk group are used to group the ports as part of a trunk on

the Edge switch or on an AG.

6. Ensure that both modules are running the same Fabric OS versions.

Configuration management for trunk areas

The porttrunkarea command does not allow ports from different admin domains (ADs) and ports from

different logical switches to join the same trunk area (TA) group.

When you assign a TA, the ports within the TA group will have the same Index. The Index that was

assigned to the ports is no longer part of the switch. Any Domain,Index (D,I) AD that was assumed to

be part of the domain may no longer exist for that domain because it was removed from the switch.

If you have AD1: 3,7; 3,8; 4,13; 4,14 and AD2: 3,9; 3,10, and then create a TA with Index 8 with ports

that have index 7, 8, 9, and 10. Then index 7, 9, and 10 are no longer with domain 3. This means that

AD2 does not have access to any ports because index 9 and 10 no longer exist on domain 3. This

also means that AD1 no longer has 3,7 in effect because Index 7 no longer exists for domain 3. AD1's

3,8, which is the TA group, can still be seen by AD1 along with 4,13 and 4,14.

A port within a TA can be removed, but this adds the Index back to the switch. For example, the same

AD1 and AD2 with TA 8 holds true. If you remove port 7 from the TA, it adds Index 7 back to the

switch. That means AD1's 3,7 can be seen by AD1 along with 3,8; 4,13 and 4,14.

You must enable trunking on all ports to be included in a trunk area before you can create a trunk

area. Use the portCfgTrunkPort or switchCfgTrunk command to enable trunking on a port or on all

ports of a switch.

Issue the porttrunkarea command to assign a static TA on a port or port trunk group, to remove a TA

from a port or group of ports in a trunk, and to display masterless trunking information.

76 Access Gateway Administrator's Guide

53-1003126-02