5308xl and LACP/Trunking issues

[Seth Horila]

We just recently upgraded our network switches to HP 530Xxl series from 3coms. I have run into some issues with LACP knocking out some workstations on the network. To fix this i just disable LACP on the port. We have HP Proliant 370,570 servers that run teamed nics. As we have been porting these off the old equipment, LACP and STP seems to be blocking port access whenever it detects a teamed nic. I see that the switch automatically sets up a trunked port by itself. Unfortuantely I didnt have time to research the trunking aspect of these switches. In the meantime, i have disconnected 1 nic in the team, killed the trunk in the switch and LACP to regain communication. What is the proper setup for teamed 1000GBIT nics from switch to server? - Thanks.

[Matt Hobbs]

Hi Seth,

By default LACP Passive is enabled on each port - with the servers set to 'automatic' teaming it should create an LACP team automatically.

With spanning-tree enabled I have noticed a not-so-nice side effect which I think you are also noticing - when the server is rebooted the Dynamic trunk gets removed - this then causes all of the ports to go into spanning-tree blocking mode for 30 seconds or so.

To prevent this from occurring, I would strongly recommend you setup static trunks instead:

5300(config)#trunk a1-a2 trk1 lacp

For the workstations I would recommend you disable LACP on those ports if you are having problems. On the newer products, LACP is disabled by default.

Matt