Q: Does enabling port channel in Aruba OS 6.4 cause network down?
A: Starting from Aruba OS 6.4, Port monitoring can be enabled on the port-channel.
The ports are getting set to blocked state on enabling/disabling port monitoring on the port-channel.
(Aruba)#show interface port-channel 7
Port-Channel 7 is administratively up
Hardware is Port-Channel, address is 00:1A:1E:00:0D:78 (bia 00:1A:1E:00:0D:78)
Description: Link Aggregate (LACP)
Spanning Tree is disabled
Switchport priority: 0
Member port:
GE 0/0/2, Admin is up, line protocol is up
GE 0/0/3, Admin is up, line protocol is up
Last clearing of "show interface" counters 0 day 0 hr 13 min 17 sec
link status last changed 0 day 0 hr 10 min 57 sec
1916 packets input, 164110 bytes
Received 1790 broadcasts, 0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
0 input error bytes, 0 CRC, 0 frame
1785 multicast, 126 unicast
368 packets output, 68805 bytes
0 output errors bytes, 0 deferred
0 collisions, 0 late collisions, 0 throttles
Port-Channel 7 is TRUSTED
(Aruba) #show datapath port
Datapath Port Table Entries
---------------------------
Flags: Q - trunk, T - trusted, B - blocked, L - LAG
M - tunneled node, X - xSec, J - Jumbo enabled
Port PVID Ingress ACL Egress ACL Session ACL MTU Flags
-------- ---- ----------- ---------- ----------- ------ ------
0/0/0 1 0 0 0 1500 QT
0/0/1 1 0 0 0 1500 QT
0/0/2 1 0 0 0 1500 QTL
0/0/3 1 0 0 0 1500 QTL
0/0/4 1 0 0 0 1500 QTB
0/0/5 4093 0 0 0 1500 T
(Aruba) #show port monitor
After enabling port monitoring on 0/0/0, the ports goes to blocked state.
(Aruba) (config) #interface gigabitethernet 0/0/0
(Aruba) (config-if)#port monitor port-channel 7
(Aruba)#show port monitor
Monitor Port Port being Monitored
------------ --------------------
GE 0/0/0 port-channel 7
(Aruba) #show datapath port
Datapath Port Table Entries
---------------------------
Flags: Q - trunk, T - trusted, B - blocked, L - LAG
M - tunneled node, X - xSec, J - Jumbo enabled
Port PVID Ingress ACL Egress ACL Session ACL MTU Flags
-------- ---- ----------- ---------- ----------- ------ ------
0/0/0 1 0 0 0 1500 QT
0/0/1 1 0 0 0 1500 QT
0/0/2 1 0 0 0 1500 QTBL
0/0/3 1 0 0 0 1500 QTBL
0/0/4 1 0 0 0 1500 QTB
0/0/5 4093 0 0 0 1500 T
(Aruba)#show interface port-channel 7
Port-Channel 7 is administratively up
Hardware is Port-Channel, address is 00:1A:1E:00:0D:78 (bia 00:1A:1E:00:0D:78)
Description: Link Aggregate (LACP)
Spanning Tree is disabled
Switchport priority: 0
Member port:
GE 0/0/2, Admin is up, line protocol is up
GE 0/0/3, Admin is up, line protocol is up
Last clearing of "show interface" counters 0 day 0 hr 15 min 17 sec
link status last changed 0 day 0 hr 12 min 57 sec
2243 packets input, 190084 bytes
Received 2111 broadcasts, 0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
0 input error bytes, 0 CRC, 0 frame
2106 multicast, 132 unicast
407 packets output, 78064 bytes
0 output errors bytes, 0 deferred
0 collisions, 0 late collisions, 0 throttles
Port-Channel 7 is TRUSTED
From show datapath port output, we could see the port 0/0/2 and 0/0/3 are in blocked state which results in network down.
The workaround for this issue would be to shutdown and no shutdown port-channel port which will recover the situation.
This is the software defect which is addressed in Aruba OS 6.4.2.5 and above.