This guide is going to cover what port aggregation / link aggregation (LAG) is and how to enable and use it within the UISP application. We'll also explore what benefits it provides and whether you should be looking at enabling it in your network.

Contents

What is link aggregation (LAG)?

What benefit does this provide?

What UISP devices can use LAG?
​How to enable link aggregation (LAG) in UISP

Simply put, link aggregation is the the aggregation of two or more ports. Once this is enabled, the devices or switch connected to each end of the cables have multiple physical connections between each other.

This can be between many network devices, such as a PC with multiple NICs installed, NAS servers or network switches.

Once you have two or more network cables between switches or devices, this can allow for greater network redundancy. Combining multiple cables also has the added benefits of increased maximum throughput.

For example, if one 1GbE connection can handle 2Gbps full duplex then two 1GbE connections between switches with LAG enabled, can handle 4Gbps full duplex.

So LAG provides benefits for improved network capacity and greater network redundancy.

So far, just the UISP Switch can be used with link aggregation (LAG). Once more models are released, we expect these to support LAG too.

Before you get started, connect the two switches together using one Ethernet cable. In this example, I am connecting a UISP Switch to a US-8-150W switch, this is fine to do as LAG is a network standard and the switches you use don't have to be from the same vendor or product line.

We have the US-8-150W connected to UniFi and setup already. Now we need to log into UISP and set up the UISP Switch for LAG.

First, log into the UISP Application and click on the UISP Switch in the devices list. Once done, click on "See old device detail"

Next, scroll down till you see the list of ports on the UISP Switch

In the list of ports, decide which two or more ports you are going to be using for the link aggregation. In this example, we are going to be combining ports 3 and 4 on our furthest away switch.

Hover over the first port we wish to use and click "+LAG"

Next, it'll ask you to pick which LAG number. In this example, I want to link ports 3 and 4 together so I would choose an ID and set that ID to both ports.

Once done, it should look like this

Once both switches have the same configuration, the next thing to do is connect them up together.

Check the stats in UISP, we can see the switch has recognised we are linked together via LAG.

This means that both switches are now linked together and we have improved network resiliency and capacity.

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