If you are using the current version of Cumulus Linux, the content on this page may not be up to date. The current version of the documentation is available here. If you are redirected to the main page of the user guide, then this page may have been renamed; please search for it there.

LACP Bypass

In Cumulus Linux, LACP bypass allows a bond configured in 802.3ad mode to become active and forward traffic even when there is no LACP partner. For example, you can enable a host that does not have the capability to run LACP to PXE boot while connected to a switch on a bond configured in 802.3ad mode. After the pre-boot process completes and the host is capable of running LACP, the normal 802.3ad link aggregation operation takes over.

LACP Bypass All-active Mode

In all-active mode, when a bond has multiple slave interfaces, each bond slave interface operates as an active link while the bond is in bypass mode. This is useful during PXE boot of a server with multiple NICs, when you cannot determine beforehand which port needs to be active.

  • All-active mode is not supported on bonds that are not specified as bridge ports on the switch.
  • STP does not run on the individual bond slave interfaces when the LACP bond is in all-active mode. Only use all-active mode on host-facing LACP bonds. Configure STP BPDU guard together with all-active mode.
  • In an MLAG deployment where bond slaves of a host connect to two switches and the bond is in all-active mode, all the slaves of the bond are active on both the primary and secondary MLAG nodes. If multiple physical NIC interfaces or more than one physical NIC is present on the physical host, NVIDIA recommends that you define which physical NIC or interface runs the PXE boot inside the PXE boot configuration file. If you do not define a specific NIC or interface, the switch sends a PXE boot request on all the interfaces in the bond and the PXE request fails.
  • LACP bypass works with EVPN multihoming.
  • Cumulus Linux does not support priority mode, bond-lacp-bypass-period, bond-lacp-bypass-priority, and bond-lacp-bypass-all-active.

Configure LACP Bypass

To enable LACP bypass on the host-facing bond:

The following commands create a VLAN-aware bridge with LACP bypass enabled:

cumulus@leaf01:~$ nv set interface bond1 bond member swp1-2 cumulus@leaf01:~$ nv set interface bond1 bond mlag id 1 cumulus@leaf01:~$ nv set interface bond1 bond lacp-bypass on cumulus@leaf01:~$ nv set interface bond1-3 bridge domain br_default cumulus@leaf01:~$ nv set bridge domain br_default vlan 10,20,30 cumulus@leaf01:~$ nv config apply

Edit the /etc/network/interfaces file to add the set bond-lacp-bypass-allow to yes option, then run the ifreload -a command. The following configuration creates a VLAN-aware bridge with LACP bypass enabled.

cumulus@switch:~$ sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces ... auto bond1 iface bond1 bond-slaves swp1 swp2 bond-mode 802.3ad bond-lacp-bypass-allow yes clag-id 1 ... auto bridge iface bridge bridge-ports bond1 bond2 bond3 bridge-vids 10 20 30 bridge-vlan-aware yes ...
cumulus@switch:~$ sudo ifreload -a

To show the bond configuration, run the nv show interface <bond> command.

cumulus@leaf01:mgmt:~$ nv show interface bond1 operational applied description ----------------------- ----------------- ---------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- type bond bond The type of interface [acl] Interface ACL rules bond down-delay 0 0 bond down delay lacp-bypass on lacp bypass lacp-rate fast fast lacp rate mode lacp bond mode up-delay 0 0 bond up delay [member] swp1 swp1 Set of bond members mlag enable on Turn the feature 'on' or 'off'. The default is 'off'. id 1 1 MLAG id peer-interface bond1 Peer interface status dual Mlag Interface status bridge [domain] br_default br_default Bridge domains on this interface ...

To check the status of the link, run the Linux ip link show command on the bond and its slave interfaces:

cumulus@switch:~$ ip link show bond1 164: bond1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,MASTER,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master br0 state UP mode DORMANT group default link/ether c4:54:44:f6:44:5a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff cumulus@switch:~$ ip link show swp1 55: swp1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,SLAVE,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master bond1 state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000 link/ether c4:54:44:f6:44:5a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff cumulus@switch:~$ ip link show swp2 56: swp2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,SLAVE,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master bond1 state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000 link/ether c4:54:44:f6:44:5a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff