CHAPT ER
5-1
Catalyst 3750 SwitchSoftware Configuration Guide
OL-8550-09
5
Managing Switch Stacks
This chapter provides the concepts and procedures to manage Catalyst 3750 stacks. See the command
reference for command syntax and usage information.
The switch command reference has command syntax and usage information.
Understanding Stacks, page 5-1
Configuring the Switch Stack, page5-18
Accessing the CLI of a Specific Member, page5-23
Displaying Stack Information, page5-24
Troubleshooting Stacks, page5-24
For other switch stack-related information, such as cabling the switches through their StackWisestack
ports and using the LEDs for switch stack status, see the hardware installation guide.

Understanding Stacks

A switch stack is a set of up to nine Catalyst3750 switches connected through their StackWise ports.
One of the switches controls the operation of the stack and is called the stack master. The stack master
and the other switches in the stack are stack members. Layer 2 and Layer 3 protocols present the entire
switch stack as a single entity to the network.
Note A switch stack is different from a switch cluster. A switch cluster is a set of switches connected through
their LAN ports, such as the 10/100/1000 ports. For more information about how switch stacks differ
from switch clusters, see the “Planning and Creating Clusters” chapter in the Getting Started with Cisco
Network Assistant on Cisco.com.
The master is the single point of stack-wide management. From the master, you configure:
System-level (global) features that apply to all members
Interface-level features for each member
If the master is running the cryptographic version (that is, supports encryption) of the IP base or IP
services image software, the encryption features are available.
Every member is uniquely identified by its own stack member number.