ifgrps and VLANs on simulators

[#1]

Greetings,

Does anyone know how to configure vSphere so that we can create a ifgrp and VLAN's on cluster simulators?

There does not seem to be much VMware documentation out there since this is a useless practice if the tags are not needed on the physical switches.

-Lawrence

[#2]

Lawrence -

For VLAN tagging see the VMware kb:

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004074

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, FastLane US http://www.fastlaneus.com/
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)

[#3]

Eugene,

I found that VMware KB earlier and it does not have what I am looking for. I am not a big VMware guy so I am not sure of the correct terminology. 

My goal is to have a VSIM with:

1. LACP ifgrp with 2 ports.

2. VLAN tagged port. 

Thanks,

Lawrence

[#4]

Lawrence -

There's no implementaion of ifgrps or LACP on virtual switches for VMs that I know of.

(I did go searching on the subject to see what I might find.)

There is an implementation for ESX physical hosts. 

The linked KB does describe how to implement VLAN tagging on virtual switches.

There's also a pdf you may want to read - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_vlan_wp.pdf

VLAN tagging in virtual infrastructure is very common - we do it in FLEXPOD and other environs regularly.

I hope this response has been more helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, FastLane US http://www.fastlaneus.com/
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)

[#5]

Hello @lawrencg,

If you're using DVSwitches, then you can create a port group which will allow VLAN trunking to the connected virtual machines...

If you're using standard switches, then I believe you can use the special 4095 VLAN ID to pass all VLANs to the port group...

Hope that helps.

Andrew

[#6]

Eugene,

Thank you. 

No LACP on vSwitches is what I was looking for. I think a single mode ifgrp might work for this purpose.

As for the VLAN stuff, VGT is what I will try. 

Thanks again,

Lawrence

[#7]

Andrew,

Thank you for the screenshots. I think tagging will work with vSwitches too. All good info.

Regards,

Lawrence

[#8 · Accepted solution]

Tagging works once you configure the vmware port group as the others have described.  ifgroups are another story.  They used to work in single or multi mode, but somewhere around 8.3 they stopped passing traffic.  

Prior to 8.3, ONTAP would change the mac addresses of the member ports when it formed the port channel.  This worked well enough in a VM to pass traffic, but as of 8.3 this behaviour changed.  Now ONTAP adds the mac address of the port channel to the port's unicast filter list.  On hardware, this is the right way to do it.  But VMware's e1000 unicast filter silently ignores the additional entries, and only honors the primary mac, so traffic no longer passes in the simulator.  

It's still possible to get it working though, by modifying the mac addresses of the member ports in the vmx file to match the mac address assigned by ONTAP to the ifgrp, and then forcing vmware to allow the duplicate mac addresses.  It's not a pretty workaround, but one I do use on occasion for modeling customer environments.

[#9]

Sean -

Thank you ! 

I always appreciate your simulator hacking tips !

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, FastLane US http://www.fastlaneus.com/
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)

[#10]

You're welcome.  It's an obscure hobby but it has served me well.

I dug up the vmx settings.  Here's a little more of a how to:

After creating the port channel, but before adding the ports, determine its MAC address:

net port show -fields mac

a0a will take e0a’s mac and change the first octet to 02.  a0b will take 0b’s etc.  In this example, it's 02:0C:29:5B:46: D3

Now halt the VM and edit its VMX entries for the nics you plan to add to the port channel:

#Change it to static:
ethernet2.addressType = "static"
ethernet3.addressType = "static"

#Remove the generated address:
#ethernet2.generatedAddress = “ whatever "
#ethernet3.generatedAddress = “ whatever else"

#Assign both adapters the mac of the ifgrp
ethernet2.address = "02:0C:29:5B:46:D3"
ethernet3.address = "02:0C:29:5B:46:D3"

#Set both adapters to ignore mac conflicts
ethernet2.ignoreMACAddressConflict = "TRUE"
ethernet3.ignoreMACAddressConflict = "TRUE"

Then save and reload the vmx, boot the vm, and add the ports to the ifgrp.