Use Case: Configuring an Elastic Virtual Switch

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Objective – This use case shows how to set up an elastic virtual switch (EVS1) across two compute nodes.

In this use case, you connect the VNIC vnic0 on CN1 and the VNIC anet of the zone z1 to the elastic virtual switch EVS1 so that they are a part of the same L2 segment and they can communicate with each other on a VLAN. The following figure shows the elastic virtual switch (EVS1) across two compute nodes.

Figure 6-2 Elastic Virtual Switch Configuration

image:The figure shows the configuration of an elastic virtual switch between two compute nodes.

The figure shows a network with four nodes that contains the following components:

Two compute nodes (CN1 and CN2)
Zone z1 on CN2 with the VNIC anet resource (z1/net0)
VNIC vnic0 on CN1
A node that acts as an EVS controller (evs-controller.example.com)
A node that acts as an EVS manager on which you need to run the evsadm command (MANAGER)
A VLAN to implement the elastic virtual switch EVS1
uplink-port, which specifies the datalink that is used for the VLAN

Note - All the four nodes can be on a single machine. The EVS controller and EVS manager can be on the same machine.

Planning for the Elastic Virtual Switch Setup

Install the mandatory EVS packages.

For information about the required packages, see Mandatory Packages for Using EVS.

Note - The evsuser is a specific user that is created when you install the pkg:/service/network/evs package. The user, evsuser, is assigned with the Elastic Virtual Switch Administration rights profile. This profile provides all the required authorizations and privileges to perform EVS operations.
Set up SSH authentication with the preshared public key for evsuser between the following components in the EVS setup:
- The EVS manager and the EVS controller
- Each EVS node and the EVS controller
- The EVS controller and each EVS node
For more information, see Setting Up SSH Authentication.

Note - This use case assumes that the controller property is set to ssh://[email protected] on the EVS node, EVS manager, and EVS controller.
Configure the EVS controller.
1. Specify a compute node as an EVS controller in your network and then set the EVS controller on each compute node so that the compute nodes can communicate with the EVS controller. Note that you can set the controller properties from any compute node that can communicate with the EVS controller. For more information, see Configuring Elastic Virtual Switches.
2. Specify the properties l2-type, vlan-range, and uplink-port. Otherwise, you cannot create the elastic virtual switch.
Create an elastic virtual switch. You must associate an IPnet and add a VPort to the elastic virtual switch.
Create a temporary VNIC on CN1 and connect the VNIC to the VPort of the elastic virtual switch.
Create a VNIC anet resource on the zone z1 and connect it to the elastic virtual switch.

EVS Manager Operations

Set the EVS controller.

MANAGER# evsadm set-prop -p controller=ssh://[email protected]

Set the EVS controller properties.
1. Set the type of L2 topology that must be used for the elastic virtual switch.
```
MANAGER# evsadm set-controlprop -p l2-type=vlan
```
2. Set the VLAN range.
```
MANAGER# evsadm set-controlprop -p vlan-range=200-300
```
3. Specify the datalinks (uplink-port) that are used for the VLAN.
```
MANAGER# evsadm set-controlprop -p uplink-port=net2
```
```
MANAGER# evsadm set-controlprop -h CN2 -p uplink-port=net3
```
Note - You can configure the EVS controller from any node in the data center as long as you can connect to the EVS controller and have the required authorizations. For more information, see Security Requirements for Using EVS.

Verify the controller properties.

MANAGER# evsadm show-controlprop -p l2-type,vlan-range,uplink-port
NAME                VALUE               DEFAULT             HOST
l2-type             vlan                vlan                --
vlan-range          200-300             --                  --
uplink-port         net2                --                  --
uplink-port         net3                --                  CN2

Create an elastic virtual switch named EVS1.
```
MANAGER# evsadm create-evs EVS1
```

Add the IPnet EVS1_ipnet to EVS1.

MANAGER# evsadm add-ipnet -p subnet=192.168.100.0/24 EVS1/EVS1_ipnet

Add the VPort vport0 to EVS1.
```
MANAGER# evsadm add-vport EVS1/vport0
```
You do not need to always add a virtual port to an elastic virtual switch. When a VNIC is created, you can specify only the name of the elastic virtual switch to which the VNIC must connect. In such cases, the EVS controller generates a system virtual port. These virtual ports follow the naming convention sys-vportname, for example, sys-vport0. The system virtual port inherits the elastic virtual switch properties.
Verify the elastic virtual switch that is created.
```
MANAGER# evsadm
NAME           TENANT           STATUS    VNIC      IP                      HOST
EVS1           sys-global       --        --        EVS1_ipnet              --
   vport0      --               free      --        192.168.100.2/24        --
```
Note - Because the tenant name is not specified, the default tenant name, sys-global is used by the elastic virtual switch EVS1. You can specify the tenant name by using the –T option when you create an elastic virtual switch. For more information, see How to Configure an Elastic Virtual Switch.
Check the MAC address and the IP address associated with EVS1/vport0.
```
MANAGER# evsadm show-vportprop -p macaddr,ipaddr EVS1/vport0
NAME          TENANT        PROPERTY  PERM   VALUE              DEFAULT   POSSIBLE
EVS1/vport0   sys-global    ipaddr    r-     192.168.100.2/24   --        --
EVS1/vport0   sys-global    macaddr   r-     2:8:20:3c:78:bd    --        --
```
The VNIC that connects to vport0 will inherit the IP address and MAC address. The IP address that is assigned for vport0 is the next available IP address from the IPnet EVS1_ipnet and the MAC address is randomly generated for vport0.

Check the VLAN ID associated with the elastic virtual switch EVS1.

MANAGER# evsadm show-evs -L
EVS          TENANT          VID   VNI
EVS1         sys-global      200   --

Compute Node `CN1` Operations

Specify the EVS controller.

CN1# evsadm set-prop -p controller=ssh://[email protected]

Create a temporary VNIC vnic0 and connect it to EVS1/vport0.
```
CN1# dladm create-vnic -t -c EVS1/vport0 vnic0
```

Verify the VNIC that is created.

CN1# dladm show-vnic -c
LINK     TENANT         EVS     VPORT       OVER     MACADDRESS        VIDS
vnic0    sys-global     EVS1    vport0      net2     2:8:20:3c:78:bd   200

The MAC address of vnic0 maps to the MAC address of the VPort.

Check the allowed IP addresses for vnic0.
```
CN1# dladm show-linkprop -p allowed-ips vnic0
LINK     PROPERTY     VALUE            EFFECTIVE       DEFAULT   POSSIBLE
vnic0    allowed-ips  192.168.100.2    192.168.100.2   --        -- 
```
The allowed-ips property is set to the IP address associated with the VPort. With this setting, you cannot create any other IP address on vnic0 other than 192.168.100.2.

Create an IP interface for vnic0 and assign 192.168.100.2 as the IP address.

# ipadm create-ip -t vnic0
# ipadm create-addr -t -a 192.168.100.2 vnic0

Compute Node `CN2` Operations

Specify the EVS controller.

CN2# evsadm set-prop -p controller=ssh://[email protected]

Configure the VNIC anet resource for the zone z1 and connect it to the elastic virtual switch.

CN2# zonecfg -z z1
Use 'create' to begin configuring a new zone
zonecfg:z1> create
create: Using system default template 'SYSdefault'
zonecfg:z1> set zonepath=/export/zones/z1
zonecfg:z1> select anet linkname=net0
zonecfg:z1:anet> set evs=EVS1
zonecfg:z1:anet> end
zonecfg:z1> commit
zonecfg:z1> exit

Install and boot the zone z1.

CN2# zoneadm -z z1 install
CN2# zoneadm -z z1 boot

Log in to the zone z1 and complete the zone configuration.
```
CN2# zlogin -C z1
```
For more information about zone configuration, see Creating and Using Oracle Solaris Zones .
Verify the VNIC anet that is created.
```
CN2# dladm show-vnic -c
LINK       TENANT       EVS    VPORT        OVER   MACADDRESS        VIDS
z1/net0    sys-global   EVS1   sys-vport0   net2   2:8:20:1a:c1:e4   200
```
Because the VPort was not specified when you created the VNIC anet resource, the EVS controller creates a system VPort, sys-vport0, for the VNIC anet resource.

Display the information that is related to the VPort.

CN2# evsadm show-vport -o all
NAME            TENANT     STATUS VNIC    HOST MACADDR         IPADDR
EVS1/sys-vport0 sys-global used   z1/net0 CN2  2:8:20:1a:c1:e4 192.168.100.3/24

The VNIC anet resource is plumbed and assigned the VPort's IP address.

Verify the IP address of the VNIC anet resource, z1/net0.

CN2# zlogin z1 ipadm
NAME              CLASS/TYPE    STATE        UNDER      ADDR
lo0               loopback      ok           --         --
   lo0/v4         static        ok           --         127.0.0.1/8
   lo0/v6         static        ok           --         ::1/128
net0              ip            ok           --         --
   net0/v4        inherited     ok           --         192.168.100.3/24