Configuring a Stack
- Ensure that every switch, or node, in the stack is running on the same partition (primary or secondary). To find this information for any node, issue the command show switch and look for the Image Booted field in the output.
- Ensure that every switch in the stack is running the same version and patch level of ExtremeXOS. To find this information for any node, issue the command show switch and look for the Primary Ver or Secondary Ver field in the output.
- If necessary, enable switch
license levels or configure license level restrictions for the nodes in the
stack.
- To understand how licensing works in stacked switches, see Managing Licenses on a Stack.
- To enable a license on a node, see Software Upgrade and Boot Options.
- To restrict the license level for one or more nodes in a stack, see Restricting a Switch License Level.
- We recommend that you save the configuration for each switch that will participate in the stack, so that you can reinstate the configuration after the switch is no longer needed in the stack.

Note
New switches are primary-capable by default.Because stacks can consist of switches of different series and different models, ExtremeXOS does not restrict configuration settings based on the capabilities of any particular node in the stack. Therefore, you are responsible for ensuring that your configuration settings are appropriate for all switches in the stack.
The following switch families come from the factory with stacking-support enabled with stack ports set to a default configuration. The following table describes the default configuration for each switch:
Switch | Stack port default configuration |
---|---|
ExtremeSwitching 5320 | SummitStack V400 |
ExtremeSwitching 5420 | SummitStack V40 |
ExtremeSwitching 5520 | SummitStack V160 |
ExtremeSwitching 5720 | SummitStack V40 |

Important
ExtremeSwitching 5720 and ExtremeSwitching 5520 switches contain different types of EXOS images. The ExtremeSwitching 5720 requires an onie_x86_64 image type, and the ExtremeSwitching 5520 requires a summit_arm image type. Before building a mixed stack of these two switch families, all switches must have the same release level image loaded onto all nodes.Once a mixed stack of ExtremeSwitching 5720 and ExtremeSwitching 5520 switch families has been built, a software upgrade is required. Download and install the onie-summitarm-bundle.lst image, which combines the onie_x86_64 image and the summit_arm image into one bundle.
Alternatively, you can use the following two step upgrade process:
- Download the onie_x86_64 image (and optionally install) onto the Primary node in the stack.
- Download the summit_arm image (and optionally install) onto the Primary node in the stack.