On Summit family switches with shared copper/fiber gigabit ports, you configure automatic failover using the combination ports. These ports are called combination ports because either the fiber port or the copper port is active, but they are never active concurrently. These ports, also called redundant ports, are shared PHY copper and fiber ports.
If you plan to use the automatic failover feature, ensure that port settings are set correctly for autonegotiation.
Note
You may experience a brief episode of the link going down and recovering during the failover.Refer to Displaying Port Information for more information on the show ports information command.
Hardware determines when a link is lost and swaps the primary and redundant ports to maintain stability.
After a failover occurs, the switch keeps or sticks with the current port assignment until there is another failure or until a user changes the assignment using the CLI.
The default preferred-medium is fiber. If using the force option, it disables automatic failover. If you force the preferred-medium to fiber and the fiber link goes away, the copper link is not used, even if available.
Note
For more information about combination ports on Summit family switches, refer to the ExtremeSwitching and Summit Switches: Hardware Installation Guide for Switches Using ExtremeXOS 21.1 or Later.