Ports and Port Channels

Port channels provide a mechanism for combining individual links into a group to create a single logical link that provides the aggregate bandwidth of up to eight physical links. Port channels provide increased bandwidth and redundancy and balance the traffic load between the members port. If a member port within a port channel fails, traffic previously carried over the failed port switches to the remaining member ports.

Port channels can be configured using static mode (no protocol) or the Link Access Control Protocol (LACP). Any configuration changes that you apply to the port channel are applied to each member port of the port channel. A port channel must have at least two ports. A port channel can be added to a bridge. A bond is created when a port channel has more than two members and the port channel is added to a bridge.

A port can be a member of only one port channel. All the ports in a port channel must be compatible; they must use the same speed and operate in full-duplex mode.

To create a port channel:

configure terminal
pnic pc type port_channel lacp_type active bond_mode balance-tcp trunks 10, 20
commit

A port channel must have at least two ports. A bond is created when a port channel has more than two members and the port channel is added to a bridge. You can add a port to a new port channel or a port channel that already contains ports.

To add a port to a port channel:

configure terminal
pnic eth1 member_of pc
commit

You can add a port channel to a new bridge or an existing bridge. When a port channel is added to a bridge, a bond is added for the port channel.

To add a port channel to a bridge:

configure terminal
bridges bridge test-br port pc
commit

Before deleting a port channel, you must remove all members assigned to the port channel. If the port channel is configured on the bridge, you must remove the port channel from the bridge.

To delete a port channel:

configure terminal
no pnic pc
commit

To remove a port from a port channel:

configure terminal
no pnic eth1 member_of pc
commit

To remove a port channel from a bridge:

configure terminal
no bridges bridge test-br port pc
commit

To enable LLDP on a port:

configure terminal
pnic eth0 lldp enabled
commit

To disable LLDP on a port:

configure terminal
pnic eth0 lldp disabled
commit

To bring a port up administratively:

configure terminal
pnic eth5 adminstatus up
commit

To bring a port down administratively:

configure terminal
pnic eth5 adminstatus down
commit

Note	This feature is supported only on ENCS 5400.

The configured VNICs tracks the state of the ports based on the PNICs notifications. To verify the state of the port, use show interface or ethtool commands. You can also use commads specific to the VM, that displays the interface link state.

To configure track state on GE0-0 & GE0-1:

configure terminal
pnic GE0-0 track-state ROUTER 1
end

To configure track state on switch port:

configure terminal
switch interface gigabitEthernet 1/0 track-state ROUTER 2
end

To enable autonegotiation on a port:

configure terminal
pnic GE0-0 speed auto duplex auto
commit

To configure speed and duplex with non auto values:

configure terminal
pnic GE0-0 speed 100 duplex full
commit

Speed can be set to 10, 100, 1G, 10G, 10G_PF, 10G_SR, 10G_VF and auto. Duplex values can be set at full, half and auto.

Use show pnic GE0-0 operational-speed , show pnic GE0-0 operational-duplex and show pnic GE0-0 autoneg to verify the configurations.

Note

The speed and duplex configurations are dependent on the peer configuration. If the peer is set at a certain speed and duplex, NFVIS port is set to match that speed. Not all ports on ENCS 5000 series hardware devices support Automatic medium-dependent interface crossover (auto-MDIX) feature. Based on the port connected to the ENCS device, the cable type used to connect to the peer and the speed or duplex settings on the peer, you can try straight through and cross over cable.