Best way to reload 3850 stack with minimal impact

[Pierre Dlbl]

Hi all,

We would like to reboot every member of our 3850 stack (6 members). Here is the current state :

1- Master

2- Standby

3- Member

4- Member

5- Member

6- Member

The goal is to reload them one by one. What is the preferable order to do this while keeping the same state (same master/standy and switches numbers)

Thank you!!

Pierre.

[Julio E. Moisa · Accepted solution]

Hi Pierre,

You could use the following command: 

reload slot stack-member-number

You can begin with the last switch member and then successively to reach the master switch and reboot it.

My suggestion is do it during an authorized maintenance window.

Hope it is useful

:-)

[Pierre Dlbl]

Hi Julio,

Thanks a lot for your answer. There is just something i'm afraid of though :

Let's say I just reloaded the 6th and I need to reload the 5th.

The moment it goes down, the 6th won't take the number 5 of the stack and get interfaces numbers as 5/x/x and cause problems? I'm not sure of how it exactly works...

Also, here are the priority numbers :

Switch#   Role    Mac Address     Priority Version  State
------------------------------------------------------------
*1       Active   c472.95cf.0980     8      V04     Ready              
 2       Standby  689c.e2d8.7a00     1      V04     Ready              
 3       Member   c472.95ce.f600     1      V04     Ready              
 4       Member   a055.4f04.2980     1      V04     Ready              
 5       Member   c472.95ce.f500     1      V04     Ready              
 6       Member   689c.e2cd.7a80     1      V04     Ready

Do I need to modify them ? If the last switch I shut down is the master he won't take again the master role right ?

Thanks again

[Julio E. Moisa · Accepted solution]

Hi Pierre,

Good point, I usually configure the stack priorities to the switches before to deploy them into production, the idea is have an order and standard. 

Before to reload them, you should change the priority for each one. I dont recommend leave the switches with default priority value. 

I begin with the value15 for the master, but if you don't want to change the number 8, you can modify the priority 

8,7,6,5,4,3  (in order to avoid any trouble you can take note of the mac address of each switch, compare if they are on the correct order and configure the priority to the switches based on that to avoid problems with the order).

It will request restart the switch to take effect. To be honest, after you have changed the priority for each switch you could restart the entire stack instead one by one. 

Important: Always get a backup of the configuration. 

Hope it is useful

:-)

[Pierre Dlbl]

Julio,

Ok, so before reloading any switch I will set the priority numbers as 8,7,6,5,4,3.

I would like to avoid restarting the entire stack because of the downtime...

Isn't it better to start by reloading the Master ? Then the standby so the first switch re-take the master role ?

And then the others... ?

Thanks