Virtual VOSS for GNS3 expected behavior for no data plane support

[KenM]

I have been learning about ISIS/SPB after taking some Extreme Academy training. I have a basic GNS3 setup with a few virtual appliances with VOSS 8.4 image. I am trying to understand what no dataplane support means - I have the ISIS and SPBM part working (I think - I see a remote i-sid associated with a customer vlan on one leaf being advertised by the other) and was hoping to have a mac learned on one edge show up as learned by the other. Learning a mac on a vlan port from a VPCS attached to it doesn't seem to work but I'm not sure if that is expected since the packet would be coming from the "dataplane". However, if I add an IP to the VLAN interface I can ping the VPCS. The arp table entry is formed but no mac ever shows up in show vlan mac-address-entry. Again, this may be due to not having an active dataplane. I tried adding a statically mapped MAC to a port in the customer VLAN where the VPCS was attached to see if that would be advertised but that didn't seem to work either. This could be completely due to my lack of knowledge of VOSS but it would be nice to know what the expected limits of the lack of dataplane would impose on mac learning and distribution of macs across the infrastructure. I've been reading mostly the VOSS 8.4 command guide for help with configuration.

Thanks!
Ken

[dale65a]

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@KenM wrote:
I have been learning about ISIS/SPB after taking some Extreme Academy training. I have a basic GNS3 setup with a few virtual appliances with VOSS 8.4 image. I am trying to understand what no dataplane support means - I have the ISIS and SPBM part working (I think - I see a remote i-sid associated with a customer vlan on one leaf being advertised by the other) and was hoping to have a mac learned on one edge show up as learned by the other. Learning a mac on a vlan port from a VPCS attached to it doesn't seem to work but I'm not sure if that is expected since the packet would be coming from the "dataplane". However, if I add an IP to the VLAN interface I can ping the VPCS. The arp table entry is formed but no mac ever shows up in show vlan mac-address-entry. Again, this may be due to not having an active dataplane. I tried adding a statically mapped MAC to a port in the customer VLAN where the VPCS was attached to see if that would be advertised but that didn't seem to work either. This could be completely due to my lack of knowledge of VOSS but it would be nice to know what the expected limits of the lack of dataplane would impose on mac learning and distribution of macs across the infrastructure. I've been reading mostly the VOSS 8.4 command guide for help with configuration.

Thanks!
Ken

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Version 8.10.1.0 of your network device has changed its default behavior, as ports no longer automatically belong to VLAN 1 upon initial setup. Unlike previous expectations, you now need to manually create VLANs and explicitly assign ports as members to establish basic network connectivity, as connecting devices like VPCS to ports doesn't automatically place them in a VLAN. Your solution of creating a new VLAN and adding ports to it correctly resolves this, highlighting a significant change requiring manual configuration for a working forwarding plane. This shift might be for enhanced security or greater network design flexibility.

[Philippe_D]

For people still looking for a solution:

I am now trying with version 8.10.1.0 and this functionality works. However it doesn't work straight out of the box. You would expect all ports to be member of VLAN 1 as it used to be and you would expect just connecting endpoints to the ports of the switch should result in a functioning network given that the ports are enabled (which they are by default in this version). But it doesn't... The ports by default don't belong to any vlan. Connecting a VPCS to a port doesn't place it in any vlan either. I created a new vlan and made my ports member of this vlan this resulted for me in a working forwarding plane. 

regards,

Philippe