The Views Expressed Below Do not in any way reflect Internal Doctorine or Official Statements of Netgear Inc. These are just my notes – Use at your own Risk.
To set up a LAG between a CISCO switch/router and a NETGEAR switch
Equipment:
CISCO – switch/router which supports LACP Etherchannel
NETGEAR – GSM#### switch – can be done with XSM####
On the CISCO make sure that the mode is “active” for LACP. On NETGEAR half of the setup is on the GUI and half is on the CLI.
Even though we are not supposed to configure the CISCO side – we all still study the CCNA/CCNP material – so we can at least have a look to make sure the settings look right and point the customer in the right direction
SCENERIO
NETGEAR’s GSM7352Sv2 port 47 and 48 are connected to CISCO’s (unknown device) port 6 and 8.
VLAN Information:
The vlans are simply trunked over. Meaning that the appropriate VLANs are TAGGED on it, on the Cisco that means the MODE is set to TRUNK.
Vlan 2,4 and 5 are made on the Netgear and on the Cisco. This is irrelevant for the Lag to show up as “up” but for a complete working setup its very much relevant.
Remember to have all the layers of the OSI model to work for this to work. However if the VLANS are configured wrong, the LAG link status wil still show up as UP. If the lag link status is UP we know that lag is configured correct.
ON CISCO – unknown firmware – unknown hardware version
The following “show run” on the CISCO reveals the following LAG settings.
Make sure the CISCO device has the approx. the same settings and that “channel group X mode active” is set to active for LACP mode to work.
In the command “channel group X mode active”. The number in the X field is the same thing as the “lag number”. It can technically be anything, in this case we choose the random number 4, The Netgear is set to LAG # 1. The LAG # on the NETGEAR and the PORT CHANNEL # on the Cisco do not have to match.
Note on comments: that the lines starting with ! are ignored. If ! is in the middle of the line, everything after the ! is ignored as commen
# show run
NOTICE THAT THE LOAD-BALANCE DST-IP SETTING IMPLIES THE HASH LEVEL
THE PORT CHANNEL (ALSO KNOWN AS LAG/ETHERCHANNEL) IS SETUP WITH THE TRUNK
port-channel load-balance dst-ip interface Port-channel4 description Uplink with Netgear User Switchs switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q switchport mode trunk spanning-tree portfast !
HAVING THE TRUNK ENABLED ON THE PORT IS PROBABLY REDUNDANT AND UNNECESSARY – BUT IT WORKED THAT WAY SO THATS WHAT I PUT ON HERE
MAKE SURE THE “Channel-group # mode active” HAS THE “active” KEYWORD AS THAT WHAT DENOTES LACP MODE
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/6 description Part of 2Gig Aggregate to Netgear User Switchs switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q switchport mode trunk channel-group 4 mode active !
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/7 description Part of 2Gig Aggregate to Netgear User Switchs switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q switchport mode trunk channel-group 4 mode active !
ON NETGEAR – GSM7352Sv2 – v8.0.3.34
GUI:
SETUP THE LAG AND INCLUDE THE APPROPRIATE PORTS AS MEMBERS ON THE LAG (Ports 47 and 48 in this case)
HERE ARE THE SETTINGS OF THE LAG:
LAG SETTINGS
Admin mode: Enable
Hash mode: SRC IP AND TCP/UDP PORT
STP Mode: Enable
Static Mode: Disable
Link Trap: Enable
Set the Membership to be port 47 and 48
IN THE SWITCHING-PORTS TAB UNDER VIEWING THE SETTINGS OF THE LAG I NOTICED THAT LACP MODE WAS BLANK BUT THATS OKAY
CLI:
SO GO IN THE CLI AND ENSURE LACP MODE IS ENABLED
# config # port lacpmode enable all
(or)
# port lacpmode all # save
THE END
AT THIS POINT THE LAG SHOULD SHOW AS “UP” EVEN IF THE VLANS ARE NOT CONFIGURED RIGHT ON IT YET – THAT PRETTY MUCH MARKS OUR SUCCESS.
* TO VIEW THE LAG STATUS YOU CAN DO IT FROM THE “PORTS” TAB UNDER “SWITCHING” OR THE “LAG” TAG UNDER “SWITCHING”
* TO SETUP THE VLAN SETTINGS MAKE SURE THE VLAN SETTINGS ARE CONFIGURED UNDER THE LAG AND NOT UNDER THE PORTS. IF YOU DO CONFIGURE VLAN SETTINGS UNDER THE PORTS, ITS FINE, THEY ARE JUST IGNORED.
* HERE IS WHAT THE REST OF THE DEVICE WAS CONFIGURED LIKE FOR THE LAG TO PASS THE CORRECT TRAFFIC (Note that the vlan settings under the ports are redundant and unnecessary as the LAG takes precedence with the vlan information here. Even with that redundancy, I still included them as they do not hurt the functionality of the router to include – they are just ignored):
interface 1/0/47 no spanning-tree edgeport vlan pvid 2 ! <--- Redundant and not necessary, but doesnt hurt to include vlan participation include 2,4-5 ! <--- Redundant and not necessary, but doesnt hurt to include exit interface 1/0/48 no spanning-tree edgeport vlan pvid 2 ! <--- Redundant and not necessary, but doesnt hurt to include vlan participation include 2,4-5 ! <--- Redundant and not necessary, but doesnt hurt to include exit interface lag 1 vlan participation include 2,4-5 ! <--- This is the VLAN config thats necessary for VLANs to work on the LAG vlan tagging 2,4-5 ! <--- This is the VLAN config thats necessary for VLANs to work on the LAG exit