C1111 - Port-channel

[SZ1111]

Hi everyone,

I just got a hold of a new C1111 router, and I was just wondering is there a particular reason that you can only put routed interfaces (Gi0/0/0 and Gi0/0/1) as members of port-channel or am I doing something wrong here ??? If that's the only option, I guess the idea behind this is just to create redundancy or increase bandwidth on an UPLINK. I would like to create port-channel towards my LAN network, but there is no option to put channel-group command on switched interfaces (Gi0/1/0 - Gi0/1/3).

Thanks you for your response

[Giuseppe Larosa]

Hello @SZ1111 ,

I think it is a device limitation caused mainly by its performance it can not support to have multiple gigabit of traffic going through it.

It is an edge device.

Hope to help

Giuseppe

[hobbe]

Hi Guiseppe

I think that you might be right and that might indeed be the reason, however that said, Port-channels are used for other things than just increasing traffic flow.

I think its a sad thing that Cisco does not recognize the value of this feature for the edge routers.

The Cisco 1111-4p has 2 Routing ports and a 4 port switch.

That means I can get several different options for redundancies on the external interfaces.

I would love to have the possibility to connect a Port-channel to a switch/switch stack/VPC/2nd router to get link redundancy on the inside too. (Yes spanning tree is one option, but not the one i prefer!)

The most irritating part is that the command is half there, you can do the port-channel command but you can not add the number.

The ISR4221 has the identical problem when you add a 4 port switch module to it.

If anyone at Cisco is seeing this please consider adding this properly to the switch modules, it would help a lot with fault tolerance designs.

Best Regards

Torbjorn

[SZ1111]

I have solved this limitation by moving UPLINKS to switched ports, and used routed ports (where i can create Port-channel) towards the LAN network where I have stacked switches.

[fady.nagy@orange.com]

I have the Same issue,

Could you please share the configuration of the Etherchannel with the routed-ports.

Thanks

[Donia]

could you inform me how did you configure vpc on this router ? i tried to configure it with the same way as nexus switch to add vpc 1 under interface port-channel 1.20 

[SZ1111]

Sorry for a late reply, this is how I did it:

interface GigabitEthernet0/0/0
description Po10
no ip address
negotiation auto
channel-group 10 mode active
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/0/1
 description Po10
 no ip address
 negotiation auto
 channel-group 10 mode active
!
interface Port-channel10
 description LAN
 no ip address
 no negotiation auto
 service instance 2 ethernet
  encapsulation dot1q 2
  rewrite ingress tag pop 1 symmetric
  bridge-domain 2
 !
 service instance 7 ethernet
  encapsulation dot1q 7
  rewrite ingress tag pop 1 symmetric
  bridge-domain 7
!
interface BDI2
 description SERVICE-1
 ip address x.y.z.q
!
interface BDI7
 description SERVICE-2
 ip address x.y.z.q
!

[Fred Nielsen (ePlus)]

chiming in and completely agree on this point, this is a disappointing limitation given the router's market position - port-channel has far more\greater utility than simply aggregating bandwidth, some would argue its other benefits are what many deployments would be looking for.

[EdgarMurray8920]

I own one of the C1111-4P routers. When the router was released, there was no support for Etherchannel. I think with one of the updates they added the feature but I have not tested it. I would not be surprised if is very limited. 

[Shabaz Khan]

(Gi0/1/0 - Gi0/1/3) are switchports, you cannot do port channel on C1111 router

[EdgarMurray8920]

This needs to be analyzed again. At the time of the writing and the image that I had, there were no options for EtherChannel for those interfaces. But in the 17.0 XE version there are options for that on those interfaces. I have not tested that, but I will and write back. 

[SZ1111]

I have a router in my office with latest recommended version 17.6.3a and it still does not support channel-group on switch interfaces (Gi0/1/0-Gi0/1/3).

[EdgarMurray8920]

You are correct. But in IOS 16 I did see those options. 

[Shabaz Khan]

Port channel is possible on gi 0/0/0 and gi 0/0/1 2 routed ports. If One port goes to ISP, then we cannot do port channel.

(Gi0/1/0 - Gi0/1/3) are switchports.

[EdgarMurray8920]

I can confirm you are correct. I see the options on the WAN(Routed) ports in the 17.07.02 image.

But I am sure that when I upgraded to 16.x I saw some options in the switched ports that were not there before.