Stacking Dell PowerConnect Switches: 8132, 8132F, 8164, 8164F 
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copies of the stack configuration for the user’s knowledge.  The actual stack information used by the 
switch is not that which is stored in the startup configuration. 
A stack member configuration is always present on stacking capable switches, so there always is a line 
in the configuration that says stack and a second line that says member even if there are no devices 
stacked.  Since these are stack-capable devices, an un-stacked device is still considered a stack of one.  
Here is an example configuration of a device that is not stacked.     
console#show run 
 
!Current Configuration: 
!System Description "PowerConnect 8164F, 5.0.0.0, Linux 2.6.27.47 
!System Software Version 5.0.0.0 
!Cut-through mode is configured as disabled 
! 
configure 
slot 1/0 5    ! PowerConnect 8164F 
slot 1/1 8    ! Dell 10GBase-T Card 
stack             
member 1 4    ! PCT8164F       
exit 
interface out-of-band 
ip address 172.25.194.24 255.255.0.0 172.25.194.254 
exit 
interface vlan 1 
exit 
username "admin" password dec68e453164a2 privilege 15 encrypted 
line telnet 
enable authentication enableList 
exit 
snmp-server engineid local 800002a203001ec9ddad5b 
exit 
 
Notice there is only one member line in the configuration.  If there were multiple members in the stack 
then there would be multiple member lines in the configuration, such as: 
stack 
member 1 1    ! PCT8164F        
member 2 1    ! PCT8164F        
member 3 1    ! PCT8132F         
 
  Note: A single stack member configuration is always present on stack-capable switches even if 
they are not part of an actual stack.  The single switch is considered a stack of one. 
How a Master is selected 
A Master is elected or re-elected based on the following considerations, in order: 
1.  The switch is currently the Master. 
2.  The switch has the higher MAC address.