Problem with Bonds and Bridging

RouterOS General
1

Hello, I have two CRS326 switches. Everything is largely up and running but have run into an issue with setting up bonded pairs.

Right now both are connected via SFP1 which is passing trunked traffic fine, the wheels came off the bus when I am adding in SFP2 into a bond which then later I will add SFP1 into, they will be 802.3ad trunks.

In Switch2 (new) I disabled SFP2 on the bridge, then in Interfaces created an 802.3 bond, and slaved SFP2 to it. Easy.

In Switch1 (old) SFP1 and SFP2 are already showing disabled, but when I go to create the 802.3 bond on Interfaces I get this error:

Couldn’t add new interface - sfp-sfpplus2 already in bridge(6).

Back in Switch1’s bridge → ports, SFP1 and SFP2 are disabled, but there are dynamic versions of them. The ‘standard’ versions are disabled, and I cannot disable the dynamic ones:

Couldn’t remove Bridge Port - can not remove dynamic port (6)

So I can’t create the bond until the port is disabled on the bridge, which it is, but there are dynamic versions which cannot be disabled. On Switch2 I had no problems doing this, there are no dynamic versions of those interfaces. On Switch1 I created other bonds (to FW, NAS) and didn’t run into this problem. Both switches are running RouterOS 7.15.1

What am I missing?

2

Delete sfp-sfpplus2 from the /bridge/ports list, then you can create a new bond interface where sfp-sfpplus2 is a member.

3

I was able to remove SFP2 from the bridge, but still getting the error message when trying to slave to a bond:

Couldn’t add new interface - sfp-sfpplus2 already in bridge(6).

It would seem that it is counting the dynamic port, which is still present after removing SFP2 and cannot be removed.

4

Try to reboot your device after you remove any explicit configuration regarding sfp2 port …

5

I did that and no change in the above behavior, what’s more is now all the port lights are constantly on even if not populated and every few seconds flash.

6

I also want to note that Switch1 has an ‘all’ interface on the bridge ports. Switch2 does not have this ‘all’ interface.

7

The plot thickens. Poking around I looked at ‘Quick Set’ which I never touched on either switch. Switch1 is set to ‘router’ Switch2 is set to ‘bridge’.

Again, I have never messed with that page but set everything up in webfig.

8

This may be the problem. Remove the “all” port from bridge and explicitly add those which you want (i.e. all except the ports you want to use as bond; after you manage to create the bond, add bond to bridge).

I’d reset the device to no config and configure things from scratch (without using quickset profiles) … this may prove as challenging to those with little ROS experience though, but does ensure that device configuration ends up being exactly the way it’s (explicitly) configured.

9

The ‘all’ interface was at fault. I deleted it, added back my cap and vlan interfaces to the bridge and everything is working as expected now. As I noted above I never used quickset when setting up the switch; the ‘all’ interface showed up after I upgraded Switch1, it was 6.x and I upgraded to 7.x because Switch2 came that way from factory and I wanted to ensure no versioning issues would crop up. Well, they did just not in the way I expected.

I was tempted to start over from scratch but working through problems is how to best learn how this stuff works; I come from a Cisco background so Mikrotik is a definite departure from my comfort zone, but not a bad one. Just stuff like this ends up being a curveball because its out of my wheelhouse.

Thanks for the help my friend!