2900Xl at a LAN PARTY

[n00bmerlin]

I have three cisco 2900XL-en switches that we are hosting a 60 person LAN party with. (Yes I know that 3 2900's are over kill but bandwith is important)
We need to interconnect the three switches so all computers can see each other.
I was told to use a crossover cable between port 24 on switch #1 to port 24 on switch #2 then a crossover again from port 23 on switch #2 to port 24 on swith #3 enable PORT FAST on each of the ports I am using to connect the switches.

Does this sound right?

Thanks

 

[nawlej]

(Yes I know that 3 2900's are over kill but bandwith is important)

First of all, nothing is overkill when it comes to LAN party bandwidth. If I had it my way, my border gateway would be hooked into a central office. Anyway, yes, that is correct to make crossovers between the switch ports like that. The reason for this is to acheive full duplex by the pairs being reversed, and running portfast.

___________________________________
[morse]--... ...--[/morse], Eric.

 

[vipergg]

Yup that is correct and those port are 100 meg full duplex only so you don't have to worry about whether it autonegotiated correctly or not .

 

[n00bmerlin]

Thanks alot guys thought we had it correct but the worst time to find out is when 60 people are staring at you because the network won't work.

 

[nawlej]

well, just do what I do....bring extra everything.....Not unlike me to have an extra of everything....that goes in triplicate for ice.

___________________________________
[morse]--... ...--[/morse], Eric.

 

[bierhunter]

Yes, the crossover like you said will work.

But....What you want to do is enable Portfast on all ports "except" the links between the switches. Put portfast on the ports that your computers are connecting to only.

Now...technically, since you won't be having any redundant paths, turning portfast on for the uplinks won't hurt anything. However, you normally do not do that. Enabling portfast basically disables STP for those ports. If you had redundant links with portfast enabled, you could get spanning-tree loops.

So basically, you'll have portfast enabled on your host (PC) ports, but not enabled on the switch uplink ports.

Now go have fun fragging each other! I miss hosting LAN parties.

BierHunter
CNE, MCSE, CCNP

 

[vipergg]

Portfast technically does not turn off spanning tree , it eliminates a couple of spanning tree listening , learning steps which makes the ports come up faster but spanning tree is still running .