Configuring Sun Fire B1600 Blade Chassis Switch Connections

The blade system chassis switch may have physical connections to the following:

• External router or switch

• External L2 switch ports

• Switch ports of other chassis

• VLAN-aware NIC of provisioning servers

The presence or absence of these connections and the number of ports used depends on the network topology implemented. Ensure that the duplex and speed on both ends of the connection is properly auto-negotiated. Otherwise, network performance might be adversely affected. Also, if multiple ports are used for improving bandwidth between switches or switch—router connections, enable link aggregation on these ports.

Before setting VLAN rules to ports, VLANs need to exist in the switch database. To do this, execute the following sequence of commands:

Vty-0# configure
Vty-0(config)# vlan database
Vty-0(config-vlan)# vlan 1 name DefaultVlan media ethernet state active
Vty-0(config-vlan)# vlan 2 name MgtVlan media ethernet state active
Vty-0(config-vlan)# vlan 4 name IdleVlan media ethernet state active
Vty-0(config-vlan)# vlan 8 name ImageVlan media ethernet state active
Vty-0(config-vlan)# vlan 9 name ControlVlan media ethernet state active
Vty-0(config-vlan)# vlan 10 name VLAN10 media ethernet state active
Vty-0(config-vlan)# vlan 11 name VLAN11 media ethernet state active

When done creating all VLANs, press Ctrl Z or end to leave the configuration mode.

The following describes the configuration steps for ports involved in these connections.

To Configure Chassis Switch Ports

Steps

1. Connect ports to the external router.

   Configure these ports as trunk ports that allow tagged packets. The blade system chassis switches require explicit enabling of VLANs allowed on trunk connections. Configure all VLANs except the switch management VLAN (factory default set to VLAN 2) to pass through.

   On the blade system chassis switch, the set of commands used to achieve this is as follows:

   Vty-0(config)#interface ethernet NETP0 Vty-0(config-if)# description External RJ-45 connector NETP0 Vty-0(config-if)# switchport allowed vlan add 1 untagged Vty-0(config-if)# switchport native vlan 1 Vty-0(config-if)# switchport mode trunk Vty-0(config-if)# switchport allowed vlan add 10-1024 tagged Vty-0(config-if)# switchport forbidden vlan add 2 Vty-0(config-if)#

   In the above example VLANs 10-1024 are allowed on tagged port NETP0. All other VLANs are forbidden.

2. Connect ports to the external switch ports.

   These connections may be of two types: trunk connections to the external switch using the NetP7 port and control plane connections using the NetMgt port.

   For trunk connections using the NetP7 port, the configuration requirements and commands to do this are the same as in the previous step.

   For control plane connections using the NetMgmt port, the NetMgmt port must be in the management VLAN of the switch (by default, VLAN 2). This is a factory default setting, but verify this during the configuration phase.

   interface ethernet NETMGT

   switchport allowed vlan add 2 untagged

   switchport native vlan 2

   switchport allowed vlan remove 1

   switchport forbidden vlan add 1

3. When done creating all VLANs, press Ctrl Z or end to leave the configuration mode.

4. For ports connected to switch ports of other chassis, the requirements and commands are the same as in step 1.

5. For ports connected to VLAN-aware NIC of the provisioning server, the requirements and commands are the same as in step 3.