We just activated 2 x 1 Gbps fibers for IP transit. We had hoped to aggregate the capacity for both of them to effectively get a virtual single 2Gbps edge connection.

Here is the setup: (we are running RouterOS 6.38.5)

Cisco 3600 < - - >sfp7 Mikrotik CCR 1016-12S-1S+
Cisco 3600 < - - >sfp8 Mikrotik CCR 1016-12S-1S+

/interface bonding
add mode=802.3ad name=bonding-fiber slaves=sfp7,sfp8 \
transmit-hash-policy=layer-2-and-3

The link is not coming up on the Cisco end (controlled by the upstream provider) and is throwing the following error:

Jul 12 17:23:11.859 MDT: %EC-5-L3DONTBNDL2: Gi0/1 suspended: LACP currently not enabled on the remote port.
Jul 12 17:23:40.387 MDT: %EC-5-L3DONTBNDL2: Gi0/2 suspended: LACP currently not enabled on the remote port.

We tried messing with the settings on our end. For a brief time the link was up, but traffic only seemed to go through one of the sfp interfaces, not both of them (a full BGP session established and was carrying multiple streams of traffic). For no apparent reason about 1-2 minutes after it came up, the link dropped completely (could not ping across the IPs).

We tried having them revert to just a static LAG instead of LACP but no changes on their end or ours seemed to make a difference.

EDIT: We did establish that each circuit had Layer 3 connectivity separately individually when out of the bonding configuration.

Is this a setup that should be possible and maybe we are doing something wrong? Or is this something I should not expect to work? Anyone with a Cisco background tried this setup before?

Any input would be appreciated!

I don't have any issues with LACP from MikroTik to Cisco.

On my setup I see that I use LACP Rate: 1s.
Does it work if you try that?

IIRC when cisco suspends an interface it won't come back up without administratively bringing it up.
So making changes on your side won't show immediately.

We do have the "LACP Rate"= 1 s.

While working with their technician, I recall him waiting for us to "bring up" our side, as if we had it disabled- which we did not. Presumably his end showing us as down. Perhaps he needed to re enable the interface on the Cisco?

The hard part is they are speaking Cisco language under the assumption we use Cisco - I don't know Cisco all that well and they didn't share the configs on the Cisco. I am looking for what the Cisco configuration *should* be as there's only a few things we can change with the Mikrotik.

Here's my cisco config if it helps.
What we call bonding in Mikrotik, Cisco calls Etherchannel and the interfaces are called 'Port-channelX' or poX.
So you have a Port-channel interface (ie the bonding interface)
And then you have your 2 ethernet interfaces which are assigned to this Port-channel (channel-group 1 active).


I don't remember for sure, but yes, I thing that when cisco marks an interface as 'suspended' (as in your case) you need to manually disable/enable the interfaces (on cisco) to get them working again otherwise they stay in suspended mode regadless if you disable/enable them on your side. Maybe that's why they were waiting for you to 'bring up' your side?
I haven't had this issue for a long time so I don't recall the exact procedure. If I remember wrong please someone correct me.