Etherchannel in GNS3

The method to increase the bandwidth by aggregating or bundling parallel links is known as
EtherChannel.

To confirm working of this lab, 192.168.1.1 ip should ping from 192.168.1.2 ip address.

In this topology all the ports are in access mode, so all ports belong to same VLAN i.e vlan 10. There
are 6 physical links in between the Switch R1 and R2. 1 port-channel group is made on both the
switches. On switch R1 there is a vlan 10 interface which contain ip 192.168.1.1/30.  

Conditions of EtherChannel :-
Each EtherChannel can have, two to eight links of either Fast Ethernet (FE), Gigabit Ethernet (GE),
or 10-Gigabit Ethernet (GE) as a logical link of Fast EtherChannel (FEC), Gigabit EtherChannel
(GEC), or 10-Gigabit EtherChannel (10GEC) respectively. This bundle provides bandwidth
according to the links. 

Configure all the interfaces to operate on same speed and same duplex.

Enable all interfaces in EtherChannel. A interface can be shut to check the redundancy.

An EtherChannel does not form if ports are configured with dynamic VLANs.

If ports are access ports then they should be in same VLAN. 

If ports are trunk ports then allowed VLANs on the trunk port should be same. Trunking
Encapsulation should be same on all ports. 

EtherChannel avoids bridging loops by combining the links into single logical link. This link can be
act as access or trunk, depend on the topology. Traffic is distributed on the links according to the
hashing algorithm, each link of FEC has the capacity of 200Mbps, carry upto 200Mbps. but logical
link capacity is 800Mpbs. These links carry only those frames which are placed by EtherChannel on
it. It is also provide redundancy for the links, when one link got broken from bundle then the traffic of
that link got distributed over other links. By this it helps to get rid of failover. And when that link got
up again the traffic is redistributed again. 
Distribution of Traffic :- 
Traffic over EtherChannel got distributed as  a result of hashing algorithm. The algorithm can use
source and destination MAC address, source and destination IP address etc. Algorithm calculate a
binary pattern that selects a link in the bundle to carry the frame. If there are only two links in the
bundle then 1-bit index got generated. If the index is 0 then link 0 is selected, if it is 1 then link 1 is
selected. For 4 link bundle hash use last 2 bits whereas for 8 link bundle 3 bits. 

Load Balancing Methods :-

There are 9 methods for load balancing in EtherChannel.

Method value                             Hash Input

1.src-ip                                        Source IP address
2.dst-ip                                        Destination IP address
3.src-dst-ip                                  Source & Destination IP address
4.src-mac                                    Source MAC address
5.dst-mac                                    Destination MAC address
6.src-dst-mac                              Source & Destination MAC 
7.src-port                                    Source port number
8.dst-port                                    Destination port number
9.src-dst-port                              Source & Destination port

EtherChannel Protocols :-
There are two types of protocols used in EtherChannel.
1. PAgP
2. LACP

Configuration of Switch R1 :-

interface Port-channel1
 switchport access vlan 10
!
interface FastEthernet1/0
 switchport access vlan 10
 duplex full
 speed 100
 channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface FastEthernet1/1
 switchport access vlan 10
 duplex full
 speed 100
 channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface FastEthernet1/2
 switchport access vlan 10
 duplex full
 speed 100
 channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface FastEthernet1/3
 switchport access vlan 10
 duplex full
 speed 100
 channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface FastEthernet1/4
 switchport access vlan 10
 duplex full
 speed 100
 channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface FastEthernet1/5
 switchport access vlan 10
 duplex full
 speed 100
 channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface Vlan10
 ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.252

Same Configuration would be on Switch R2 except interface vlan 10.

Configuration of Switch R3 :- 

interface FastEthernet1/0
 no switchport
 ip address 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.252
 duplex full
 speed 100

Verification 
Ping from 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.1 :-

R3-SW#ping 192.168.1.1

Type escape sequence to abort.

Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.1.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 16/24/32 ms