588 Configuring RoutingLoopbacksThe PowerConnect 8024/8024F provides for the creation, deletion, and management of loopbackinterfaces. They are dynamic interfaces that are created and deleted through user-configuration. ThePowerConnect 8024/8024F supports multiple loopback interfaces.A loopback interface is always expected to be up. As such, it provides a means to configure a stable IPaddress on the device that may be referred to by other switches. This interface provides the sourceaddress for sent packets and can receive both local and remote packets. It is typically used by routingprotocols.The loopback does not behave like the network port on Switching systems. In particular, there are noneighbors on a loopback interface. It is a pseudo-device for assigning local addresses so that the routercan be communicated with by this address, which is always up and can receive traffic from any of theexisting active interfaces. Thus, given reachability from a remote client, the address of the loopback canbe used to communicate with the router through various services such as telnet and SSH. In this way, theaddress on a loopback behaves identically to any of the local addresses of the router in terms of theprocessing of incoming packets.The Loopbacks menu page contains links to web pages that configure and display loopback parametersand data. To display this page, click Routing →Loopbacks in the tree view. Following are the web pagesaccessible from this menu page:• Loopbacks Configuration• Loopbacks SummaryLoopbacks ConfigurationUse the Loopbacks Configuration page to create, configure, or remove loopback interfaces. You can alsoset up or delete a secondary address for a loopback.To display the page, click Routing →Loopbacks →Configuration in the tree view.
