Dell PowerConnect S4048T-ON configuration help

[Maxed Out]

Hey Guys/Gals,

New user and this is my first post.

I have a whole bunch of Dell PowerEdge T630 machines sitting in my racks at the office and they are doing nothing. So I built a FreeNAS box as per my signature.

Now my problem is that I am a hardware guy and my job really stops after the machines boot and all the cables and hasps are plugged in. I can't for the life of me figure out how to configure this switch. I have console access to it and it isn't being used for anything right now. I want to activate all the ports as a dumb switch and use 8 of them for LACP.

Anyone out here versed in Dell's Force 10 OS?

Thanks for your time

 

[m0nkey_]

Anyone out here versed in Dell's Force 10 OS?

I'm not, but a quick Google offered this page to get started with the device: https://niktips.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/dell-force10-part-1-initial-configuration/

 

[Maxed Out]

I'm not, but a quick Google offered this page to get started with the device: https://niktips.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/dell-force10-part-1-initial-configuration/

I had found it before and couldn't make heads or tails of It the first time. After 10 hours I kinda got a functioning device... Well with a 60% dropped packet rate, but better than the tin cans and string.

Thanks for posting it. Some progress. Now to find what I am doing wrong... and fix it... Or burn the room, something should work ;)

 

[SweetAndLow]

I had found it before and couldn't make heads or tails of It the first time. After 10 hours I kinda got a functioning device... Well with a 60% dropped packet rate, but better than the tin cans and string.

Thanks for posting it. Some progress. Now to find what I am doing wrong... and fix it... Or burn the room, something should work ;)

I would bother until you can explain why you need lacp. And have a workflow to back it up.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Maxed Out]

I would bother until you can explain why you need lacp. And have a workflow to back it up.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

I realize I am a nobody and don't have the right to expect any help.

The use case is a project to further my own expertise. I am a hardware guy, I build high end machines, build and maintain call centers and data centers. I don't do networking, I would like to have a better understanding of this. I have the extra brand new equipment and am willing to play around. LACP is used by my network admins.

 

[SweetAndLow]

I realize I am a nobody and don't have the right to expect any help.

The use case is a project to further my own expertise. I am a hardware guy, I build high end machines, build and maintain call centers and data centers. I don't do networking, I would like to have a better understanding of this. I have the extra brand new equipment and am willing to play around. LACP is used by my network admins.

No that is a perfect valid reason, it just helps to have some perspective so we can lead you down the correct path.

I don't know anything about the switch you have but I can tell you that to set things up on freenas you have to use the console interface locally on the system. Using the gui usually results in funky behavior.

Another thing you can do to get started is just setup a simple failover lagg. This requires zero switch config and you can use a dumb switch. This will let you get experience configuring freenas and testing the failover by pulling a cable. From here I would suggest then playing with lacp.

Getting 60% packet loss is not good. There should always be zero packet loss. If you are seeing more than zero something is messed up and you should start over with your steps. Take notes on everything and every command you run, this will help debug stuff.

 

[Maxed Out]

No that is a perfect valid reason, it just helps to have some perspective so we can lead you down the correct path.

I don't know anything about the switch you have but I can tell you that to set things up on freenas you have to use the console interface locally on the system. Using the gui usually results in funky behavior.

Another thing you can do to get started is just setup a simple failover lagg. This requires zero switch config and you can use a dumb switch. This will let you get experience configuring freenas and testing the failover by pulling a cable. From here I would suggest then playing with lacp.

Getting 60% packet loss is not good. There should always be zero packet loss. If you are seeing more than zero something is messed up and you should start over with your steps. Take notes on everything and every command you run, this will help debug stuff.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to reply. I do have it working on a dumber switch. The ports are setup as load balanced, and everything seems to work fine. It is the config of this smarter switch that is making me stupid. I have been trying a few things on this one and the closest I got was this morning. Now she is just being stubborn again.

Thanks again.

 

[Maxed Out]

OK, so an update.

I had configured the switch right on the first attempt. I was having a problem with the original switch that ran the network not support Spanning Tree RSTP. I moved everything over to the S4048T-ON and everything was good until I went to my HP Latex Printers and their RIP machine and nothing worked right, again old switch not supporting Spanning Tree RSTP. I swapped it to an X1026 and turned on management to configure the Spanning Tree mode.

I have since added 2 Windows 10 Pro based clients in the rack each with 2x Intel X540-T2 dual port cards, with LACP enabled on the ports and a Synology DS1815+ with the 4 GbE ports bonded/teamed for LACP as well.

FYI... a Windows 10 update broke Intel Advanced Networking Services and required an update, that took 2 hours to learn.