1-11 IRFIRF OverviewAn Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF) stack is a set of network devices. Administrators can groupmultiple network devices into a stack and manage them as a whole. Therefore, stack management canhelp reduce customer investments and simplify network management.Introduction to StackA stack is a management domain that comprises several network devices connected to one anotherthrough stack ports. In a stack, there is a master device and several slave devices.An administrator can manage all the devices in a stack through the master device. Figure 1-1 shows anetwork diagram for stack management.Figure 1-1 Network diagram for stack managementz Master device: In a stack, the master device acts as the configuration interface in stackmanagement. Management and monitoring of all the devices in the stack are performed throughthe master device.z Slave devices: Managed devices in a stack.z Stack port: Ports between stack devices.Establishing a StackAn administrator can establish a stack as follows:z Configure a private IP address pool for a stack and create the stack on the network device which isto be configured as the master device.z Configure ports between the stack devices as stack ports.z The master device automatically adds the slave devices into the stack, and allocates a private IPaddress and a member ID for each slave device.
