An MSH may be configured to contain a number of 'resilient pairs'. These are 802.3 point to point connections, e.g. UTP, that allow two repeaters to be connected together in a resilient configuration. In such a configuration one of the two ports is nominated the 'main' port while the other is the 'standby' port. One of these two ports is enabled and is the current active port. The other is present in case of failure of the active port. Such a failure is detected by the MSH and a switch performed.

There are a couple of rules that must apply to a resilient pair definition before that definition becomes a valid resilient pair. Firstly both ports must be on the same repeater. Secondly the standby port must be configured to be 'disabled on boot'. That is it must recover from a power failure in a disabled state. This prevents loops in the network.

Several tables control the resilient repeater configuration for the MSH. This is the first. This is the main table and allows the creation and deletion of pairs and provides status control and information. The information in this table is indexed on the repeater number and the slot/port location of the main port.

To create a new resilient pair simply write any writeable object indexed on the main port. This will create a new entry in the table which has the state 'invalid' (read resPairState). Having created the row, write to the other parameters specifying valid information. When all the parameters are valid the resPairState will become 'operational'. In this state the pair will correctly operate as a resilient pair. If any of the attributes in the table change so that the pair in no linger valid this will be reflected in the resPortState parameter.

To delete a resilient pair, write 'delete' to resPairAction.