Technical Note: SLBC - Speed setting of blackplane fabric interfaces

[FortiKoala]

Description
The article describes the correct method to set the speed of the FortiController backplane fabric interface

Solution
The speed setting depends on the FortiGate hardware:
    - FG5144C Chassis supports the 40G backplane.
    - If the FortiController is a FT5903C (or FT5913C) and the workers blades are FGT5001D or FG5001C, then the backplane fabric interfaces must be set to 40G

FortiController FG5144C configuration :

C1-S1 # config switch fabric-channel physical-port
(physical-port)# edit slot-3 
(slot-3)# set speed 40000full
(slot-3)# end

FortiGate configuration :

C1-S3 (global) # conf sys int
C1-S3 (interface) # edit elbc-ctrl/1
C1-S3 (elbc-ctrl/1) # set speed 40000full
C1-S3 (elbc-ctrl/1) # next
C1-S3 (interface) # edit elbc-ctrl/2
C1-S3 (elbc-ctrl/2) # set speed 40000full
C1-S3 (elbc-ctrl/2) # end

Other hardware combinations do not support 40G backplane, therefore the backplane fabric interfaces must be set to 10G :

FortiController 5103B configuration :

C1-S1 # config switch fabric-channel physical-port
(physical-port)# edit slot-3 
(slot-3)# set speed 10000full
(slot-3)# end

FortiController 5903C/5913C configuration :

C1-S1 # config system global
(global)# set fabric-backplane-port-10g-mode enable
WARNING: Enabling fabric channel backplane port 10G mode will clear the existing interface configuration and reboot system.
Do you want to continue? (y/n)y
(global)# end

C1-S1 # config switch fabric-channel physical-port
(physical-port)# edit slot-3 
(slot-3)# set speed 10000full
(slot-3)# end

FortiGate configuration :

C1-S3 (global) # conf sys int
C1-S3 (interface) # edit elbc-ctrl/1
C1-S3 (elbc-ctrl/1) # set speed 10000full
C1-S3 (elbc-ctrl/1) # next
C1-S3 (interface) # edit elbc-ctrl/2
C1-S3 (elbc-ctrl/2) # set speed 10000full
C1-S3 (elbc-ctrl/2) # end