thisisalloneword

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thisisalloneword

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October 12th, 2021 09:00

How to configure switch on VRTX?

I have installed the OS's on all four blades, but none have any networking. I believe I need to attach an uplink cable to my main network somewhere on the switch. Then do some configurations?

I believe this is explained in Chapter 3 of the User guide under "Configuring enclosure components" . I tried reading about Fabric A,B and C but am confused by it all.

What I want is for each blade to grab an IP via DHCP from the uplink cable to the main network. I then want each blade to be able to communicate with each other via the local 10 GbE network. I am not sure where to plug in this uplink cable? See picture below. In the future I may add one or two workstations to the switch . These workstations should also get a IP via DHCP from the main network and be able to communicate with the four blades via the local 10 GbE network.

 

WhatsApp Image 2021-10-12 at 12.22.26 PM.jpeg

  • thisisalloneword

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    Posted April 8th, 2022 11:00

    Finally got this resolved with the help of Dell support folks. Basically had to disable spanning tree on the VRTX switch. This is so that our corporate switch doesn't block it due to BPDU guard.

    The engineer from Dell said if we disable spanning tree then we can't do link aggregation ( use two uplink cables into the VRTX switch ).  I don't think we need that, so was ok with just disabling spanning tree.

  • DELL-Shine K

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    Posted October 12th, 2021 10:00

    You need to use Fabric A to get network for embedded network ports. Looking at the picture, looks like you have "Dell PowerEdge VRTX 10 Gb R1-2210 switch module" on the chassis. For this you can connect uplink to any one of the port and all 4 blades will get the network link.

  • thisisalloneword

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    Posted October 12th, 2021 12:00

    Thanks. I tried connecting the uplink cable to one of the two ports labeled gi0/1 . But it seems I get no lights flashing  . When I log into the switch I see all the external ports are down ( see picture below ).

    To verify it's not a cable issue, I unplugged the CMC uplink cable and plugged it into the gi0/1 port . Still, no ethernet lights flashed.. I then plugged the cable back to the CMC port. But now it seems I can not access the CMC anymore from the web. The enclosure is flashing a bunch of red lights.. Did I do something bad by pulling out the cable from the CMC?Capture.PNG

     

  • DELL-Shine K

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    Posted October 12th, 2021 21:00

    Can you connect uplink to 10Gig ports and see whether it is making any difference.  Removing cable from CMC should not create any issues. You can check blow link to understand LED pattern

    https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/poweredge-vrtx/cmcvrtx32ug/interpreting-led-colors-and-blinking-patterns?guid=guid-9b775c1b-8a38-43db-a7aa-835020072013&lang=en-us 

  • DELL-Charles R

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    Posted October 13th, 2021 06:00

    Hello thisisalloneword,

     

    I'll admit networking is not my strong suit but I think this article may fit what you see:

     

    Dell EMC Networking VRTX R1-2210 Switch Gig ports down, link lights off

    https://dell.to/3mQ1duf

     

    DELL-Charles R

    Social Media and Communities Professional
    Dell Technologies | Enterprise Support Services
    #IWork4Dell

    Did I answer your query? Please click on ‘Accept as Solution’. ‘Thumbs up’ the posts you like!

  • thisisalloneword

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    Posted October 13th, 2021 06:00

    I believe it is blinking amber/red? which indicates a fault. 

    Someone from our networking team is saying the uplink port has gone into disabled state. He said, "there is BPDU msg received on this port and making it in error disable state and in addition to that check if there is patch panel in between."

    I am not sure why unplugging and plugging back in the cable to the CMC would cause this issue.. Will investigate furthur..

     

     

  • Origin3k

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    Posted October 13th, 2021 09:00

    Well, who knows if the ports...

    • are "shutdown"
    • configured for tagged VLAN
    • are part of a LAG/LACP
    • $enter more reason here..

     

    so take a look to "show running-config" or just reset the config by removing the startup-config and reload the switch.

    Question: The internal ports are green?

  • thisisalloneword

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    Posted October 13th, 2021 11:00

    Apparently what happened is the uplink port got disabled when I plugged it into the VRTX port gi0/1 . The reason for this is explained by our higher level networking team here:

    " Kindly note that the Dell device should not send any BPDU messages to the switch because it could change the STP topology however from the logs checked by the IP experts those devices have sent a BPDU message so the switch blocked them by putting the interface in err-disable mode. "

    I am quite cluless on what this means and what I should do though. Will do some more research on this topic...

    We do have other Dell enclosures in the server room. So we are going to look into how their switches are configured.

  • Origin3k

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    Posted October 13th, 2021 14:00

    Well, Cisco and others have something called BPDU Guard.

    05:56:13: %SPANTREE-2-BLOCK_BPDUGUARD: Received BPDU on port FastEthernet0/5 with BPDU Guard enabled. Disabling port.
    05:56:13: %PM-4-ERR_DISABLE: bpduguard error detected on Fa0/5, putting Fa0/5 in err-disable state
    05:56:13: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/5, changed state to down

     Most likely you have connect the switch of the VRTX to a switch port which was configured as a edge port. Those ports never would like to see BPDU packages which can modify/reconfigure the STP Root bridge which than can cause major network problems.

    And is it not BPDU it maybe something like NAC which try to protect your company network against unknown devices. So never connect something to your company network without permission.

    Regards,
    Joerg

  • DELL-Shine K

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    Posted October 13th, 2021 18:00