A maximum of 64 trunk interfaces (including Eth-Trunk and IP-Trunk) can be created on a router, and each trunk interface contains up to 16 physical member links.
The trunk technology has the following advantages:
Increasing bandwidth: The bandwidth of an Eth-Trunk interface is the sum of all the bandwidth of member interfaces.
Improving reliability: If a member link fails, the traffic automatically switches to another available links.
An Eth-Trunk interface has the following characteristics:
Supports the features supported by the Ethernet interface.
Supports the configured IP addresses, and member trunk interfaces can borrow the IP address.
Supports Layer 2 forwarding, MPLS forwarding, and Layer 3 forwarding including unicast and multicast. The Hash algorithm can be used in load balancing by flow.
Supports QoS based on physical interfaces and logical interfaces.
Supports MPLS and binding VPN instances.
Supports hot backup and hot swap.
Supports APDP.
Link aggregation refers to a method of binding a group of physical interfaces as a logical interface to increase the bandwidth. Link aggregation is called multi-interface load balancing group or link aggregation group (LAG). For more information about link aggregation, refer to IEEE802.3ad.
By setting up an LAG between two devices, you can obtain higher bandwidth and greater reliability. The link aggregation provides redundancy protection for communications among devices without upgrading the hardware.
Active and Inactive Interfaces
The interfaces in the active state that are responsible for forwarding data are active interfaces. On the contrary, the interfaces in the inactive state that do not forward data are inactive interfaces. According to the operation modes, active and inactive interfaces are classified as follows:
Manual load balancing mode: Generally, all member interfaces are active ones unless a fault occurs on these interfaces.
1:1 active/standby mode: Normally, the primary interface is the active interface and the backup interface is the inactive interface. When the primary interface fails, the backup interface is activated and the primary interface becomes the inactive interface.
Static LACP mode: The interfaces connected to M links are active interfaces. The active interfaces are responsible for forwarding data. The interfaces connected to N links are inactive interfaces. The inactive interfaces are responsible for backup.
Actor and Partner
In static LACP mode, the device with a higher LACP priority at both ends of an LAG is the Actor and the device with a lower LACP priority is the Partner.
Differentiating the Actor and the Partner is to keep the active interfaces of devices at both ends the same. If devices at both ends select active interfaces according to the priority of their own interfaces, the active interfaces are different and the active links cannot be set up. Therefore, the Actor is first determined. The Partner selects active interfaces according to the priority of the interfaces of the Actor
Confoguration of Eth-Trunk
Creating an Eth-Trunk
Configuring the Operation Mode of the Eth-Trunk
Adding Member Interfaces to the Eth-Trunk
