Help using MSTP on ASR9k to Occam "Calix" STP

[jwinegar]

Looking for help in setting up MSTP on an ASR9k to work with an Occam 6000 series

system STP.   Looking for L2 redundant link since LAG isn't an option across blades for redundancy.

Not presently looking for load-sharing.   Anybody have this working?

[Peter Paluch]

Hello John,

Have you actually tried to get this working? As long as you connect MSTP to a plain STP or RSTP region, the interoperation should be flawless even though the external region will use a single STP instance for all VLANs. If the external region runs some kind of per-VLAN STP, there may be issues.

What exact STP version does the Occam run?

Best regards,

Peter

[jwinegar]

Hello Peter,

Thanks for reply.  From what I can tell it is using RSTP.   I'm still digging into the documentation.   I know from

our 7609's we connect using RSTP.  

I have tried once but didn't receive any BPDU packets.  I have been researching so I can try to set this up tomorrow.

[dhickey]

John,

I just got this working today. If you look in the Calix forums under the B6 section, you can see my thread between Josh

and I. I am not sure if you are still trying or not, but for others that might come across this here is my section from the ASR

I am not sure how correct this is or what I can tweak, but here is what I have right now.

spanning-tree mst FTTH

name ftth-stp

revision 1

instance 0

  priority 4096

!

instance 1

  vlan-ids 5,21,56,85,160,200

  priority 4096

!

interface TenGigE0/0/0/0

!

interface TenGigE0/1/0/0

!

!

One 10 gig interface goes to blade 1 on the Occam and the other goes to blade 12. They are both 6316's.

On the Occam side, I had to send an untagged VLAN across the EPS ring..I believe the BPDU's are sent across the ring in this VLAN.  So in my tagged profile on both blade 1 and blade 12 I added "untagged vlan 100". Occam then suggestd I reboot blades 1 and 12 (they are not in production yet) for the tagged profiles to clean up.

Like I said I just got this working. One thing I noticed is the 15 second delay from when I pull the fiber on blade 1 until the ASR forwards traffic to blade 12 (learning process). I am looking into what I can do on the ASR to limit that time.

Don Hickey

[jwinegar]

Don,

Thanks for the reply.   I am using Bundle-Ether now.   If I get a chance I will set this back

up in our lab and try the Untagged VLAN 100 on the B series.   I'm curious why untagged

traffic or the BPDU's don't get sent on VLAN 1 around the ring.

I'd be interested in hearing about the information you get from further testing....

Thanks again

John

[dhickey]

John,

I just saw the bundle-ether reply in the Calix forums. I have the configuration (bundle-ether) on my other two 10 gig ports on my ASR and was heading over there to see how well that works.

I also sent my config to Cisco and they were going to take a look at it (the MST part). I was looking for a quicker way for the ASR to switch traffic over if a link failed or it I rebooted Blade 1 on the B6.

Thanks

Don

[dhickey]

John,

Did you have to do anything special on the B series configuration to get the bundle-ether working?

I have link on the ten gig interfaces but the bundle doesn't come up. On the Calix forum they said there was no config needon the B6 side..

Thanks

Don

[jwinegar]

On the Cisco ASR9k....

Interface Bundle-Ether100

     bundle maximum-active links 1

Interface Bundle-Ether100.213 l2transport

     encapsultaion dot1q 213

     rewrite ingress tag pop 1 smmetric

Interface GigabitEthernet0/2/0/1

     description GigE to SFRD_Occam VPT1 Port 22

     bundle id 100 mode on

Interface GigabitEthernet0/3/0/1

     description GigE to SFRD_Occam VPT2 Port 22

     bundle id 100 mode on

On the Calix B Series VPTs

VPT1.....

tagged-profile GigE_Link1

     tagged vlan 4 213

interface ethernet 22

     eps access tagged GigE_Link1

     no shutdown

exit

VPT2....

tagged-profile GigE_Link2

     tagged vlan 4 213

interface ethernet 22

     eps access tagged GigE_Link2

     no shutdown

[wasmer_anne · Accepted solution]

John,

MST is an open standard based on the 802.1w (RSTP) standard, while PVSTP/PVSTP+ is Cisco proprietary, hence MST is compatible with RSTP or even STP (802.1d/q) but not with PVSTP.

Only 802.1d uses Vlan 1 by default or the untagged vlan (Vlan 100 in your topology), other STP implementations do not requires the use of an untagged VLAN.

You may want to do the equivalent of a sh span on your Ocam system to confirm which version is implemented as it looks like you need an untagged vlan to send accrosss the BPDU, meaning that Common STP is used.

regards,

anne