6
Stacking Dell Networking Switches: N4032, N4032F, N4064, N4064F
Daisy Chain topology
Ring (loop) topology
1.5
Nonstop forwarding on the stack
The Nonstop Forwarding (NSF) feature allows the forwarding plane of stack units to continue to forward
packets while the control and management planes restart as a result of a power failure, hardware failure,
or software fault on the stack Master and allows the standby switch to quickly takeover as the Master.
1.6
Hot add/delete and firmware synchronization
Units can be added and removed to and from the stack without cycling the power on the stack. When
adding a unit, the Stack Firmware Synchronization feature automatically synchronizes the firmware version
with the version running on the stack Master. The synchronization operation may result in either an
upgrade or a downgrade of firmware on the mismatched stack member. In addition, the running-config
on the member is updated to match the Master switch. The startup-configurations on the standby and
member switches are not updated to match the Master switch. The hardware configuration of every
switch is updated to match the Master switch (unit number, slot configuration, stack member number, and
so on).
Note:
Auto-downgrade of a stack is enabled by default. To avoid accidentally downgrading a stack, be
sure to disable auto-downgrade (CLI command:
no boot auto-copy-sw allow-downgrade
)
1.7
Metadata considerations
When creating a stack, the configuration information is metadata that is part of the hardware configuration
applied at boot time before the switch firmware is started (and before the startup configuration is read).
The stack information shown in the startup and running configurations is simply copies of the stack
configuration for the user’s knowledge. The actual stack information used by the switch
is not
that which
is stored in the startup configuration.
A
stack member
configuration is always present on stacking capable switches, so there always is a line in
the configuration that says
stack
and a second line that says
member
even if there are no devices stacked.
Since these are stack-capable devices, an un-stacked device is still considered a stack of one. Here is an
example configuration of a device that is
not
stacked.
