4
CREATING A STACK
This chapter contains the information you need to create a stack. It covers 
the following topics:
■ How To Interconnect Units
■ Guidelines For Interconnecting Units
■ Unit Numbering within the Stack
How To 
Interconnect Units
Up to eight 3Com Switch 4500 units can be interconnected to create a 
stack and then treated as a single manageable unit with one IP address.
You can interconnect your Switches to create a stack using a standard 
1000 Mbps Ethernet connection. 
You can only create a stack by interconnecting a 3Com Switch 4500 with 
other 3Com Switch 4500s.
This section assumes you have either set up your units for management 
as detailed in Chapter 3 “Setting Up for Management”or that you are 
using a console cable connected to the console port to set up and 
allocate IP addresses and so on.
3Com recommends that you do not physically connect the cables on your 
stack ports until you have carried out the initial configuration of the stack 
ports as detailed below.
1 Ensure that the Switch units that you wish to interconnect have the latest 
software agent installed. You can use the display version 
command to check this.
2 Enable the ‘up port’ and the ‘down port’ on each Switch to operate in 
stack mode using the following CLI command. From the System View 
enter stack-port gigabitethernet 1/0/51 enable, for 
example.