NLB with Extreme

[EtherNation_Use]

Create Date: Jul 30 2013 12:54PM

We just installed two X670V-48X switches and stacked them together with two of the sfp ports. Everything is running great so far.

Slot-1 : XXXXXX-XX-XX XXXXX-XXXXX Rev 6.0 BootROM: 2.0.1.6 IMG: 15.3.1.4
Slot-2 : XXXXXX-XX-XX XXXXX-XXXXX Rev 6.0 BootROM: 2.0.1.6 IMG: 15.3.1.4

We now want to run NLB for an ADFS server. We want to run it in multicast mode. Binding a unicast IP address to a multicast mac address.

10.0.0.1 to 03??82:aa:23:01 (Please note that the IP/mac have been changed from the actual addresses for this post)

The ADFS server is running on VMware. We need to be able to connect to this ip address from across subnets. We use ospf for routing. I haven't setup pim or any other kind of multicast routing yet, becuase we need to bind a unicast ip address to a multicast mac address I don't even know if multicast routing is even needed. I saw a couple of posts from 2011 that said Extreme Switches can't handle NLB, however being old posts I question if that is still true or not.

The following command:

configure iparp add 10.0.0.1 03??82:aa:23:01

adds the info into the system. I am able to ping the ip address as well. When I type in: 'show iparp 10.0.0.1' it does return the entry. However when I type in the commands:

show iparp
show fdb

it doesn't show what port the mac address is on. Below you can see a cut and paste from the 'show iparp' command. The switch doesn't show me what port the host is on, while it does show what another server is on.

VR-Default 10.0.0.1 03??82:aa:23:01 0 YES District 2
VR-Default 10.0.0.2 00:50:56:96:00:09 1 NO District 2 1:17

As well the 'show fdb' doesn't even return an entry.

show fdb 03??82:aa:23:01
Slot-1 Stack.15 # show fdb 03??82:aa:23:01

Mac Vlan Age Flags Port / Virtual Port List
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flags : d - Dynamic, s - Static, p - Permanent, n - NetLogin, m - MAC, i - IP,
x - IPX, l - lockdown MAC, L - lockdown-timeout MAC, M- Mirror, B - Egress Blackhole,
b - Ingress Blackhole, v - MAC-Based VLAN, P - Private VLAN, T - VLAN translation,
D - drop packet, h - Hardware Aging, o - IEEE 802.1ah Backbone MAC,
S - Software Controlled Deletion, r - MSRP



Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

b

(from bw447)

[EtherNation_Use]

Create Date: Aug 12 2013 1:47PM

Hi Jerry.clc

Sorry for the late reply. I'm looking into this problem. Are you doing this for Exchange 20..?

Have you tried turning off igmp on your 10.0.0.1 vlan? We are going to give this a try, but haven't. Bigger problems not related to this have come up that require our teams attention. Once I try igmp I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks

bw (from bw447)

[EtherNation_Use]

Create Date: Aug 7 2013 6:25AM

Dear bw447:

I have the same problem of NLB on extreme.

I create the iparp CLI on Extreme x670-48v, and then generate duplicate packet on our network.
duplicate packet == iparp IP (multicast MAC)
ex:
configure iparp add 10.0.0.1 03??82:aa:23:01

x670-48v (stacking) --agg. Switch --- Switch (inc. NLB function) --- mail server * 2

(from jerry.clc)

[EtherNation_Use]

Create Date: Aug 1 2013 12:19PM

*****UPDATE******

We did more testing by failing over a server that are on our NLB cluster. Turns out it works very well. We don't miss a beat. However by only using the iparp command the requests go to all ports on our stack. I then go ahead and create an entry into fdb create:

create fdb vlan

Once I create the entry we lose connectivity. That's not good. I then delete the fdb entry and connectivity is up, but it's still passing the multicast mac address to all ports.
(from bw447)