topic RE: Remove switches one by one in Enterasys B5 Secure Stack in ExtremeSwitching (Other)

Remove switches one by one in Enterasys B5 Secure Stack

Jeremy_Gibbs — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 20:55:00 GMT

I have a stack of 8 Enterasys B5 Switches in a "ring" stack. I am moving to X460G2s and have moved 3 of the bottom B5 switches to the 460 stack. So Switches 6-8 can be removed. Can I just "clear switch member 6-8" and then remove them from the stack? I know switch 5 is the management so i'll have to movemanagement... Anyway, I haven't taken a stack down like this before.. I am just migrating to the new stack slowly and need to decommission this stack, switch by switch.

RE: Remove switches one by one in Enterasys B5 Secure Stack

Daniel_Coughlin — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 21:01:00 GMT

I think we have a few articles posted on this subject.
How to permanently remove SecureStack switch and configuration from an existing stack
This is the first one I have found.

RE: Remove switches one by one in Enterasys B5 Secure Stack

Jeremy_Gibbs — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 21:19:00 GMT

Ahh, very good. I didn't see that. However, I am going to be decommissioning this stack in the next 2 days, so there is no reason to reload the stack after removing it to sure up the config. I also don't care if there is some residual config for a few days. I just want to remove the switches without any interruption to the other switches in the stack.

RE: Remove switches one by one in Enterasys B5 Secure Stack

Daniel_Coughlin — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 21:27:00 GMT

Basically you just need to use the first five steps of the article.
1. Create a configuration backup and copy the backup off the switch via TFTP: show config outfile configs/filename.cfg
copy configs/filename.cfg tftp:///filename.cfg

2. If there are more than two units in the stack, a closed loop stacking connection (stack cable from top unit to bottom unit for redundancy) may be necessary to ensure switches above and below the switch being removed can still communicate with each other

3. Disconnect power cable from the unit to be removed from the stack, then disconnect the stack cables (Note: If the manager unit is being removed, a disruption to the other stack members will occur until new manager is chosen)

4. To clear the configuration from the stack for the disconnected switch, issue the command: clear switch member

5. Reconnect the running units back together in the same matter with the stack cables (up to down, or down to up ports)

RE: Remove switches one by one in Enterasys B5 Secure Stack

Jason_Parker — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 09:03:00 GMT

To start, I would TFTP the configuration to a tftp server in case you need things like
port alias, Vlan's, policies etc.as mentioned above in step 2 above
The next step is up to you but personally i would run the command,
clear switch member 5
then disconnect the stacking cables(no need to power down
Connect a console to the switch
Login in(basically admin and enter (The switch - unknown to me, may have been a standalone unit and have been configured at one time, so the switch may have saved a few configurations from the past, so i would type dir, then look for any configurations such as

682011.cfg 131173
199-199.July-2016.cfg 16645

The command to use to delete the config 682011.cfg
delete configs/682011.cfg

Then repeat the command for the remaining configuration files.

Please note that if you connect the switch for some reason, the stack may reconfigure the unit
Jason

RE: Remove switches one by one in Enterasys B5 Secure Stack

Jeremy_Gibbs — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 23:52:00 GMT

Well, I started by disconnecting one switch from the stack (of 8 switches). After that, the switch stack stayed up for 2 hours, then crashed. When it came back up, only 2 of the stack members were there and the config was all but gone. It's okay, I just moved everything over to the new x460 stack sooner than I would have liked... So I didn't get to do all of the testing I wanted to do.

RE: Remove switches one by one in Enterasys B5 Secure Stack

Daniel_Coughlin — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 00:02:00 GMT

I am sorry to hear that. Would it be possible open a ticket with the show support, current.log file and any sys.dmp file that may have been created?

Also what steps did you use to decommission the unit?

RE: Remove switches one by one in Enterasys B5 Secure Stack

Jeremy_Gibbs — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 00:17:00 GMT

Clear switch member 8 after removing it from the stack... The stack stayed up for a while and then eventually something happened and it crashed. I've already broken down the stack and cleared the config on all of the switches..