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nflnetwork29
nflnetwork29
Explorer III
October 3, 2023
Question

correct way to cable a stack of fortiswitches

  • October 3, 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 14366 views

I'm new to fortiswitch stacking and just looking fort some clarity around the redundancy of the cabling . 

 

If we have a pair of 448E switch in our Distribution layer (configuration of MCLAG) and I then want to connect 4 access layer switches (148F Series) - How would I stack these / Cable them?

 

would this be correct?

Do the 4 access layer switch need to daisy chained + switch 1 and 4 connect to disti layer?

 

 

2023-10-03_16-47-41.png

 

 

5 replies

ebilcari
Staff
ebilcari
Staff
October 4, 2023

If this are standalone switches (not managed by a FGT) I don't  think that they can be stacked. Also the MCLAG is not supported for 1xx series. I guess you could configure LAG for the uplinks in the 1st and 4th switch and leave the interswitch links to be managed by STP.

Emirjon
    nflnetwork29
    nflnetwork29Author
    Explorer III
    October 4, 2023

    i plan to use fortilink to manage everything. . the distribution layer switches we are using are the 4xx series . 

    ebilcari
    Staff
    ebilcari
    Staff
    October 6, 2023

    In FortilLink there are many advantages, practically every possible topology is covered in the guide here. Most of the interlink between the switches (ISL) will be discovered automatically.

    Emirjon
    Toshi_Esumi
    SuperUser
    Toshi_Esumi
    SuperUser
    October 4, 2023

    "Stacking" is not supported by FortiSwitches. MCLAG doesn't work to set up mulitple switches to act  virtually as one switch. It's a different type of "redundancy" operation of switches. We had the same conversation recently.

    https://community.fortinet.com/t5/Support-Forum/how-to-stack-fortiswitch/td-p/275150

     

    Toshi

      nflnetwork29
      nflnetwork29Author
      Explorer III
      October 4, 2023

      we are using MCLAG at the distribution layer only. how do we connect the 4 access layer switches?

      Toshi_Esumi
      SuperUser
      Toshi_Esumi
      SuperUser
      October 4, 2023

      If no stacking, individual connections from both MCLAG switches to each access switch should work as you described in the diagram.

       

      Toshi

        bents1
        bents1
        New Member
        October 6, 2023

        Yes they were are communicate with each other. Did run into a weird spanning treee like issue that i had to reboot one of the switches but wasnt that bad. probably coukd have lwt it sit longer but i was impatient. but that was about the biggest issue.

        doncacciatoconsuting
        doncacciatoconsuting
        Explorer II
        August 8, 2024

        Back to the original drawing....Based on some of the designs I did.... The uplinks on the access switches look good, but I always cabled the first switch in the access layer to the last switch in the group per the design docs. Any thoughts ?

        Timmay
        Timmay
        Explorer
        August 12, 2024

        Did you figure this out? Currently configuring the same setup. 

        doncacciatoconsuting
        doncacciatoconsuting
        Explorer II
        August 12, 2024

        All of the design documentation says this is best practice, and I agree. From my perspective, it's simply adding a loop for redundancy that is managed by spanning tree protocol. I don't believe it's any Fortinet special sauce. Tested it and works as expected.

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