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Etherchannel redundancy question

dannan lin
Level 1
Level 1

hi:

i am just new to cisco switchs and routers. i am running packet tracer and having a question about etherchannel redundancy.

my toplogy looks like below

2011-09-13_110941.jpg

i added both PCs to vlan 10 via port 10

VLAN Name                             Status    Ports

---- -------------------------------- --------- -------------------------------

1    default                          active    Fa0/1, Fa0/2, Fa0/3, Fa0/4

                                                Fa0/5, Fa0/6, Fa0/7, Fa0/8

                                                Fa0/9, Fa0/11, Fa0/12, Fa0/13

                                                Fa0/14, Fa0/15, Fa0/16, Fa0/17

                                                Fa0/18, Fa0/19, Fa0/20, Fa0/21

                                                Fa0/22

10   vlan010                          active    Fa0/10

1002 fddi-default                     active   

1003 token-ring-default               active   

1004 fddinet-default                  active   

1005 trnet-default                    active   

and then i created trunk lines between two switches

Switch#show int trunk

Port        Mode         Encapsulation  Status        Native vlan

Fa0/23      on           802.1q         trunking      1

Fa0/24      on           802.1q         trunking      1

Po1         on           802.1q         trunking      1

Port        Vlans allowed on trunk

Fa0/23      1-1005

Fa0/24      1-1005

Po1         1-1005

Port        Vlans allowed and active in management domain

Fa0/23      1,10

Fa0/24      1,10

Po1         1,10

Port        Vlans in spanning tree forwarding state and not pruned

Fa0/23      1,10

Fa0/24      1,10

Po1         1,10

after that i created an etherchannel on both switches

Switch#show etherchannel port-channel

                Channel-group listing:

                ----------------------

Group: 1

----------

                Port-channels in the group:

                ---------------------------

Port-channel: Po1

------------

Age of the Port-channel   = 00d:01h:20m:52s

Logical slot/port   = 2/1       Number of ports = 2

GC                  = 0x00000000      HotStandBy port = null

Port state          = Port-channel

Protocol            =   PAGP

Port Security       = Disabled

Ports in the Port-channel:

Index   Load   Port     EC state        No of bits

------+------+------+------------------+-----------

  0     00     Fa0/24   On                 0

  0     00     Fa0/23   On                 0

Time since last port bundled:    00d:00h:11m:51s    Fa0/23

after that i created load-balance

Switch#show etherchannel load-balance

EtherChannel Load-Balancing Operational State (src-dst-mac):

Non-IP: Source XOR Destination MAC address

  IPv4: Source XOR Destination MAC address

  IPv6: Source XOR Destination MAC address

when i ran the "show spanning-tree" command the cost did become less than 19.

Switch#show spanning-tree

VLAN0001

  Spanning tree enabled protocol ieee

  Root ID    Priority    32769

             Address     0002.4A2A.144E

             Cost        9

             Port        25(Port-channel 1)

             Hello Time  2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

  Bridge ID  Priority    32769  (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 1)

             Address     0030.F265.1856

             Hello Time  2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

             Aging Time  20

Interface        Role Sts Cost      Prio.Nbr Type

---------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------

Po1              Root FWD 9         128.25   Shr

VLAN0010

  Spanning tree enabled protocol ieee

  Root ID    Priority    32778

             Address     0002.4A2A.144E

             Cost        9

             Port        25(Port-channel 1)

             Hello Time  2 sec  Max Age 20 sec  Forward Delay 15 sec

and here is my question. i tried to test my

redundancy by sending ping continuesly from one pc to another .

however when i truned off the port 23, the ping was stopped and request time out .

if i resume port 23 and turned off port 24 everything goes like it should.

so why was this happened ? did i make mistake somewhere ? i throught etherchanel supports redundancy if one line goes down, the switch should pick up another immediately.

2 Replies 2

Somasundaram Jayaraman
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi,

Ideally when we turnoff one of the interfaces in port-channel, still the traffic should go because the other link is up.

Spanning-tree see the port-channel as single link and not as two individual interfaces.

If you see the output of test ether-channel load balance , it will show which interface the packet takes to reach the destination. However if one of the link fails, then through other link the traffic will flow.

Have you tried in real switch. I am not sure whether the packet tracer has this feature or not.

But in real switches it works.

- http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk389/tk213/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094714.shtml

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Somu

Rate helpful posts

I would agree with Somu.
Etherchannel is to increase the bandwidth on the link by bundle 2 or more interfaces in a single virtual link.
If any interface in the bundle it should not cause to stop data flow as the other interfaces will up.

In your case I guess that packet tracer is not working correctly.
Please try to simulate this issue in GNS3 or in real switches.


Please rate the helpful posts.
Regards,
Naidu.