User guide

Configuring Virtual Chassis Managing A Virtual Chassis
OmniSwitch AOS Release 8 Switch Management Guide May 2014 page 13-9
Managing A Virtual Chassis
The OmniSwitch 6860 has dedicated ports that connect the chassis participating in a Virtual Chassis. As
one of the basic building blocks of a Virtual Chassis configuration, the VFL facilitates the flow of traffic
and the transfer of control data between the Master and Slave chassis.
Basic Virtual Chassis Configuration
Chassis ID Assignment
A new virtual chassis can easily be created by connecting multiple switches together using the dedicated
VFL ports and then powering on the switches. Chassis-ID assignment occurs when there is no vcsetup.cfg
file on a switch. This is how switches are shipped from the factory making new, “out of the box” switches,
simple to incorporate into a virtual chassis. When no vcsetsup.cfg exists, one will be automatically created
and a chassis-id will be written to it as part of automatic chassis-id assignment.
For a newly created virtual chassis the Master role will be given to the switch with the lowest chassis
MAC address. This is due to all other election criteria being equal, see “Master/Slave Election” on
page 13-8. However, for this to occur, all chassis in the virtual chassis should be booted within approxi-
mately 2 minutes of each other. In addition, the chassis must have no preconfigured virtual chassis infor-
mation. Because of these two conditions, the MAC address method for selecting the Master will be used
with new “out of the box” switches, or any switch that does not contain a vcsetup.cfg file.
Slave Chassis-id Assignment
After the Master has been established, the remaining switches in the virtual chassis will become Slaves.
The chassis-id of each slave chassis will be determined by each chassis' physical location in the VC. The
chassis-id will be incremented with the direction from the Maser chassis toward the chassis connected to
lowest numbered VFL port (VFL 0) of the master chassis.
Chassis 1 - Master
Chassis 2 - Slave
Chassis 3 - Slave
Chassis 4 - Slave
Chassis 5 - Slave
Chassis 6 - Slave
Chassis 7 - Slave
Chassis 8- Slave
VFL Connections