[SUMMARY] Multiple NICs on a subnet

2007-12-25 11:23:00

Thanks to Kent Perrier (Kent.Perrier@Oneco.net) and Danny (dannyc@pcs.co.uk)

for their suggestions. And hello (!?) to Mark who couldn't help me, but he

did like my name. I should warn you Mark that, outside the US and Canada,

Laurie is predominantly a male name...

But, big thanks to Hans Schaechl (schaechl@bigfoot.com) who explained the

problem. Sadly a simple solution was not to be, but at least I understand

what is going on now. Hans pointed out that I had a routing problem. He

wrote:

> Assuming you have an IP subnet like 192.168.1.0/24 where both interfaces

> hme0 and qfe0 are connected with IP addresses like this: hme0 =

> 192.168.1.1 / qfe0 = 192.168.1.2

>

> When your machine boots up it initializes the interfaces order of first

> hme0 and then qfe0 (and so on). This leads to a routing

> table like this:

>

> 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.1 U (bla) hme0

> 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.2 U (bla) qfe0

>

> Now if an IP packet has to leave the machine (due to a request coming in

> from outside like your ICMP echo requests) it checks against its routing

> table to find the correct way out. First match wins! It will always route

> packets to 192.168.1.0/24 over the hme0 interface (as long as it is up)

> even if the request came in on qfe0.

>

> If you perform an 'ifconfig hme0 down' the first line from the routing

> table is being dropped and qfe0 is the new default route to your local

> subnet. After 'ifconfig hme0 up' it is added after qfe0 so that your new

> table now looks like this:

>

> 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.2 U (bla) qfe0

> 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.1 U (bla) hme0

>

> Since you seem to want to have load-sharing enabled for your machine while

> talking to your clients, this is not what you

> want - obviously. BTW: you have a sort-of-load sharing since on the MAC

> level all incoming packets are distributed to either

> the hme or the qfe interface but all the outgoing traffic accumulates on

> one of them.

>

Both Hans and Kent Perrier suggested that SUN trunking software may be the

only solution. Hans also suggested enabling IP interface groups via 'ndd

-set /dev/ip ip_enable_group_ifs 1' may work too. However this did not,

sadly, solve the problem.

Cheers,

Laurie

My original question:

> >First attempt at a question on this forum. Be gentle!

> >

> >We have an E450 and some E420Rs running Solaris 7 with a primary hme

> >interface and a QFE card. hme0 and qfe0 are connected to the same subnet.

> >On most machine we only use the two interfaces.

> >

> >I have set the following to enable the card MAC addresses:

> >

> >eeprom local-mac-address?=true

> >ndd /dev/ip ip_forwarding=0

> >ndd /dev/ip ip_strict_dst_multihoming=1

> >

> >All good so far. Now when I began testing...

> >

> >When I disconnect the line to qfe0, the IP address for hme0 still

> responds

> >correctly and the IP for qfe0 doesn't. All well and good.

> >

> >However, (after both lines are again connected and happily ping'ed) if I

> >disconnect the line to hme0, neither interface's IP address will respond

> >until I do:

> >

> >ipconfig hme0 down

> >ipconfig hme0 up

> >

> >after which the qfe0 address responds correctly. The hme0 interface still

> >(correctly) does not respond.

> >

> >It's not quite the behaviour I'd expect. I suspect this has something to

> do

> >with hme0 being the primary interface. Anyone seen this before? Can I be

> >sure that when they're both connected one interface isn't taking all the

> >load? Is there any way of stopping all interfaces from doing down when

> the

> >primary has problems?

> >

> >It does manifest itself on both the E450 and the E420R.

>

S

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