Configuring expansion Ports in Standard High Availability

The BLR-112 routers include an expansion card that provides four additional fiber ports for use. We use two different expansion cards depending on a site's needs:

• A card with ports that support 1Gbps speeds only.
• A card with ports that support 10Gbps speeds used with Bigleaf’s multi-gig service. None of the ports on this card supports 1Gbps speeds, however, you can use the standard ports on the Bigleaf router for 1Gbps speeds.

By default, expansion ports don’t have any functions assigned to them, they must be explicitly configured as either LAN, AUX, or WAN ports. You can configure the expansion ports on the Site configuration page in Bigleaf Cloud Connect. You must have Admin privileges to do this. If you don’t, contact the site's administrator for assistance.

Expansion ports can support 10G SFP+ fiber modules and 1G SFP modules. A 10G fiber SFP+ module and a 1G fiber SFP module will only auto-negotiate speed settings. See Using SFP modules with Bigleaf routers for more information.

The image below shows an example of an expansion card and ports for a BLR-112 router.

Using an expansion port as a WAN port

When an expansion port is configured as a WAN port, the existing WAN port on the router ceases to function.  For example, if EXP1 is configured as WAN1, then the router’s ethernet WAN1 port can no longer be used.

Using an expansion port as a LAN port

When an expansion port is configured as a LAN port, the expansion port is added to the LAN bridge. The ethernet port labeled LAN continues to function as a LAN port and multiple EXP ports can be configured as additional LAN ports (but be careful not to create a layer 2 loop when using multiple LAN handoffs).

For multi-gig services, at least one EXP port should be configured as a multi-gig LAN handoff and one as the Router2Router connection port.

Using an expansion port as an AUX port

When an expansion port is configured as an AUX (Router2Router) port, the ethernet port labeled AUX no longer has the Router2Router (R2R) function associated with it. If using multi-gig Standard HA deployments, be sure to configure one EXP port for R2R. If redundant connectivity is needed between the Bigleaf routers, you can configure 2 EXP ports with the R2R function on the Site configuration page in Bigleaf Cloud Connect, and the Bigleaf routers will create a LAG R2R connection.