Wired Intelligent Edge (Campus Switching and Routing)

This article explains the concept of flow control and its implementation on Aruba Mobility Access Switches.

Basically, flow control is a mechanism to temporarily stop transmission of frames in case the receiver is unable to process them due to overflow.

 When an Ethernet port receives frames faster than it can process them, it sends a PAUSE frame to stop the transmission from the sender for a specific period of time. The PAUSE frame has a destination group address of 01:80:c2:00:00:01.

Note: When flow control frames are received, only transmit can be paused. Flow control frames cannot be sent by the Mobility Access Switch (MAS). This means that the MAS can only respond to PAUSE frames but cannot generate them. The flow control can be enabled or disabled to respond to incoming PAUSE frames.

Environment : This article applies to all Aruba Mobility Access Switch platforms and all OS versions.

Following command enables Flow Control in the Mobility Access Swtich:

(Aruba) (config) #interface-profile enet-link-profile ?
<profile-name> Profile name

(Aruba) (config) #interface-profile enet-link-profile TEST
(Aruba) (Ethernet Link "TEST") #?
Autonegotiation Enable or disable autonegotiation
clone Copy data from another Ethernet Link
duplex Link duplex setting
flowcontrol Enable or disable flow control
no Delete Command
speed Link speed

(Aruba) (Ethernet Link "TEST") #flowcontrol ?
Auto Autonegotiate
off Off
on On

(Aruba) (Ethernet Link "TEST") #flowcontrol auto
(Aruba) (Ethernet Link "TEST") #interface gigabitethernet 0/0/0
(Feldberg-Corvina-Prod) (gigabitethernet "0/0/0") #enet-link-profile TEST

Below options are available under flowcontrol:

• AUTO: Auto allows devices to negotiate on whether it can send or respond to a PAUSE frame
• ON:  Turns on Flow Control
• OFF: Turns off Flow Control