09-24-2012 12:02 PM - edited 03-07-2019 09:04 AM
I hope this to be a fairly simple question --
I have a live 28port Catalyst 2960S switch. By live I mean that there is an essential piece of equipment plugged into this switch that can suffer little to no downtime. Over the course of time the number of devices patched into this location has increased to exceed the 24 ports available and we have had to resort to adding unmanaged switches to fill the need. We have acquired an additional 2960 & stacking modules that I would like to stack together, keeping the existing switch as the master. It is my understanding that the stacking modules are hot-swappable and that this member switch can be added without bringing the master switch down, thus creating zero down time for the financial server that is connected.
The steps I believe that need to be followed are as such:
After boot the member switch will get it's OS and configuration from the master and I can begin moving CAT5 cables from the unmanaged switches to the stack.
Please let me know if I am missing anything.
Martin
09-24-2012 12:45 PM
Hi Martin,
Yes, you are steps looks good. At the same time, i am sharing the best pratice to add new member to stack.
Cisco Catalyst 2960-S switches do not need to be powered off to join a stack. However, when a new member joins
an existing stack, the new member will be rebooted anyway to clear its configuration . The new member is
automatically rebooted by the stack. A reboot is operationally equivalent to powering a switch off and then on again.
Thus, it is a better practice to add new stack members to an existing FlexStack powered off
The following are steps for adding a new member to an existing stack, and it is desired that the new member not
become the master
Refer:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps6406/white_paper_c11-578928.pdf
Regards,
Aru
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01-05-2017 03:01 PM
I currently have 2 Cisco 2960S switches, however, on the back there is no area to add the FlexStack modules in order to stack the two. I am here to figure out if there is a way to stack the two switches without the flexstack module and if so, how to go about doing that. I have researched vlans, trunking, but I am still not sure how to make this happen. Thank you!
09-24-2012 01:01 PM
Hello Martin,
in addition to Arumugan's good post the C2960 configuration guide recommends to configure an higher switch priority on the master
see
>> We recommend you assign the highest priority value to the switch that you want to be the master. The switch is then re-elected as master if a re-election occurs.
This will provide benefits over time ensuring master identity.
Hope to help
Giuseppe
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