EtherChannel and Switch Stacks

If a stack member that has ports participating in an EtherChannel fails or leaves the stack, the active switch removes the failed stack member switch ports from the EtherChannel. The remaining ports of the EtherChannel, if any, continue to provide connectivity.

When a switch is added to an existing stack, the new switch receives the running configuration from the active switch and updates itself with the EtherChannel-related stack configuration. The stack member also receives the operational information (the list of ports that are up and are members of a channel).

When two stacks merge that have EtherChannels configured between them, self-looped ports result. Spanning tree detects this condition and acts accordingly. Any PAgP or LACP configuration on a winning switch stack is not affected, but the PAgP or LACP configuration on the losing switch stack is lost after the stack reboots.

For a mixed stack containing one or more Catalyst 2960-S switches, we recommend that you configure no more than six EtherChannels on the stack.

• Switch Stack and PAgP
• Switch Stacks and LACP

Switch Stack and PAgP

With PAgP, if the active switch fails or leaves the stack, the standby switch becomes the new active switch. The new active switch synchronizes the configuration of the stack members to that of the active switch. The PAgP configuration is not affected after an active switch change unless the EtherChannel has ports residing on the old active switch.

Switch Stacks and LACP

With LACP, the system ID uses the stack MAC address from the active switch, and if the active switch changes, the LACP system ID can change. If the LACP system ID changes, the entire EtherChannel will flap, and there will be an STP reconvergence. Use the stack-mac persistent timer command to control whether or not the stack MAC address changes during a active switch failover.

Default EtherChannel Configuration

The default EtherChannel configuration is described in this table.

Table 3 Default EtherChannel Configuration

Feature	Default Setting
Channel groups	None assigned.
Port-channel logical interface	None defined.
PAgP mode	No default.
PAgP learn method	Aggregate-port learning on all ports.
PAgP priority	128 on all ports.
LACP mode	No default.
LACP learn method	Aggregate-port learning on all ports.
LACP port priority	32768 on all ports.
LACP system priority	32768.
LACP system ID	LACP system priority and the switch or stack MAC address.
Load-balancing	Load distribution on the switch is based on the source-MAC address of the incoming packet.