ProCurve Stack Management

Configuring Stack Management

General Steps for Creating a Stack

This section describes the general stack creation process. For the detailed configuration processes, see pages 8-13through 8-37for the menu interface and pages 8-30through 8-42for the CLI.

1.Determine the naming conventions for the stack. You will need a stack name. Also, to help distinguish one switch from another in the stack, you can configure a unique system name for each switch. Otherwise, the system name for a switch appearing in the Stacking Status screen appears as the stack name plus an automatically assigned switch number. For example:

For status descriptions, see the table on page 8-47.

Stack with unique system name for each switch.

Stack named "Online" with no previously configured system names assigned to individual switches.

Figure 8-4. Using the System Name to Help Identify Individual Switches

2.Configure the Commander switch. Doing this first helps to establish consistency in your stack configuration, which can help prevent startup problems.

A stack requires one Commander switch. If you plan to implement more than one stack in a subnet (broadcast domain), the easiest way to avoid unintentionally adding a Candidate to the wrong stack is to manually control the joining process by leaving the Commander’s Auto Grab parameter set to No (the default).

The Commander assigns its Manager and Operator passwords to any Candidate switch that joins the stack.

The Commander’s SNMP community names apply to members.

3.For automatically or manually pulling Candidate switches into a stack, you can leave such switches in their default stacking configuration. If you need to access Candidate switches through your network before they

8-12