Trunk Configuration on BIG-IP LTMs

Hi,

Did you try to put your ports on LTM in passive mode ?

Hi Thomas, no, i didn't try it, but port 1.1 of each LTM that is connected to port 17 ad 18 of nexus N5K-1 is working fine. our port plan is as following :

LTM-1 port 1.1 --> N5K-1 port 17 , LTM-1 port 1.2 --> N5K-2 port 17

LTM-2 port 1.1 --> N5K-1 port 18 , LTM-2 port 1.2 --> N5K-2 port 18

Now, our trunk port is up but only port 1.1 of each member is up and working fine, but with the same configuration port 1.2 of each of them doesn't work!!! So, in this scenario is there any need to test passive mode on LTMs? Becuase i think testing the passive mode is successful when the trunk mode can't go on! Now have you any other suggestion thomas?

It was not with a BIG-IP but I had the same issue with 1 port up and the other in an error state.

OK Thomas, i'll try this solution in our first downtime, but is there any other solutions for redundancy guys???

Dear All, as i've read the best practice of F5, i noticed that it's better to use passive LACP mode on LTMs and active LACP mode on switches side. Also, we should to use "Short" LACP Timeout (1 Sec), not "Long" LACP Timeout (30 Sec), because "Long" mode is the default mode on all F5 LTMs. So, i'm going to test this on our first downtime. After that, i'll tell you the result...

What was the result??

Dear Techgeeeg, unfortunately i didn't test it yet, i'll test it in this week probably and tell all guys the result...

Dear All, as i've promised you before, i've tested the trunk configuration between nexus switches and F5-LTMs. The new thing i realized is the F5-LTM puts only one link active of each port-channel and put other ports to suspended mode! Also it's recommended to put LACP negotiation mode to passive mode on F5-LTM side and put it active on switch side. i've checked the HA test between them also, when i plugged out the cable that is connected to active port, the other port changed to active mode. So everything is OK with F5, no issue. The important thing here is that when you are using Port-channel between F5-LTM and switch, F5 doesn't change the B.W. of this port-channel and the total B.W. is as the same before, but it's not matter, because finally Throughput is important. I hope these new tips help you all...

Sunny, when you aggregate the 2 links between an F5 and end device participating in LACP for example that are each 1Gb, the TOTAL B/W is 2Gb.

"network throughput is the rate of successful message delivery over a communication channel" per wiki.

Hi Champs , I am also have the same setup but unable to ping ip on both ends VLAN, please suggest