How do I make my M6220 into a big, dumb switch?

Question

I've been handed control of a M1000e with a few blades and a few M6220 switches in it.

Each switch has internal ports to all of the blades, and 4 external ports. What I need it for all of these ports to be able to see each other, but I can't get communication happening between the internal and external ports.

I can successfully ping one blade from another. But I cannot plug something, say... a laptop, into one of the external ports and either ping a blade from the laptop or ping the laptop from a blade.

I've already got the switches in "Simple Mode", but I imagine that there's still some leftover VLAN, port-aggregation nonsense going on.

Can anybody point me to a little checklist of stuff to check to see why the internal ports are being partitioned from the external ports?

jemenake · Answer

So if you were to place the laptop into port 2/17 and try to ping a blade that is not in a PA for port 2/17 you would not get a reply.

I don't have any ports which start with "2". They're all "1/g1" through "1/g20". Am I to presume that this is because I don't have anything plugged into two of the bays on the back of the switch?

You can check in the web gui of the switch to see how the port aggregation is setup.

Port-aggregator group > port configuration

You can see each interface and what the group ID is for each.

They're all Group ID: 1

Under "Port Aggregator -> Port Channel Summary", however, "1/g17-1/g20" are listed under "Primary Inactive"... whatever that means.

I presume you are using the laptop as just a method of testing for connectivity? In the end how are you planning on configuring the M6220 switches?

Correct. I'm using it just to see if the switch is able to behave... as a switch. "In the end", one of the switches is going to provide the internet connection to all of the blades, while the second switch is going to provide iSCSI links to a SAN, so I'm not going to need any fancy VLAN, aggregation business.

jemenake · Answer

Well, I've made a little progress. The blades can see the SAN which is plugged into the M6220. However, they can't see the CMC on the enclosure... nor the management interfaces to the switches.

For example, if I plug a laptop directly into one of the two CMC network interfaces on the top of the M1000 enclosure, I can access the web interfaces for the CMC (at 192.168.79.2) and the six switches (at 192.168.79.20-25). Don't blame me for the strange subnet address, I wasn't the guy who configured this. The IP of the laptop is (192.168.79.231), and... like I said... the laptop can get to all of those web-based management interfaces when the laptop is plugged directly into one of the CMC network ports on the top of the enclosure.

Meanwhile, the IP's on the blades are things like (192.168.79.100) and they're able to see the SAN (at 192.168.79.250) which is plugged into one of the four 1Gb ports on the back of one of the 6220's. So, the 6220 is properly letting some traffic go out through those 1Gb ports in the back.

However... if I then, instead of plugging the laptop directly into the M1000's CMC port... if I plug the laptop and the CMC port into 1Gb ports on the back of the 6220, I'm not able to access anything which should be accessible through the CMC port (so, not the main CMC interface itself, at 192.168.79.2, nor the six 6220 interfaces at 192.168.79.20-25). I'm not able to bring up the web-based management interfaces, nor am I able to even ping them. I'm not able to do this from the laptop nor am I able to do this from the blades.

So... something is still not configured properly, and I can't make sense of it. I can plug the laptop directly into the SAN and ping it's IP (192.168.79.250) just fine. I can plug the SAN into one of the 6220 switches and then the blades can ping the SAN. I can plug my laptop into the CMC and ping it's IP (192.168.79.2) just fine. But, if I plug the CMC into the 6220 switch... the blades can't see it.

Networking General

How do I make my M6220 into a big, dumb switch?

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