Configuring Virtual Interfaces For Client Access; Network And Vif Guidelines - HP StoreAll 8800 Administrator's Manual

3 Configuring virtual interfaces for client access

StoreAll software uses a cluster network interface to carry Fusion Manager traffic and traffic between
file serving nodes. This network is configured as bond0 when the cluster is installed. To provide
failover support for the Fusion Manager, a virtual interface is created for the cluster network
interface.
Although the cluster network interface can carry traffic between file serving nodes and clients, HP
recommends that you configure one or more user network interfaces for this purpose.
To provide high availability for a user network, you should configure a bonded virtual interface
(VIF) for the network and then set up failover for the VIF. This method prevents interruptions to client
traffic. If necessary, the file serving node hosting the VIF can fail over to its backup server, and
clients can continue to access the file system through the backup server.
StoreAll systems also support the use of VLAN tagging on the cluster and user networks. See
"Configuring VLAN tagging" (page 38)

Network and VIF guidelines

To provide high availability, the user interfaces used for client access should be configured as
bonded virtual interfaces (VIFs). Note the following:
Nodes needing to communicate for file system coverage or for failover must be on the same
network interface. Also, nodes set up as a failover pair must be connected to the same network
interface.
Use a Gigabit Ethernet port (or faster) for user networks.
NFS, SMB, FTP, and HTTP clients can use the same user VIF. The servers providing the VIF
should be configured in backup pairs, and the NICs on those servers should also be configured
for failover. See "Configuring High Availability on the cluster" in the administrator guide for
information about performing this configuration from the GUI.
For Linux and Windows StoreAll clients, the servers hosting the VIF should be configured in
backup pairs. However, StoreAll clients do not support backup NICs. Instead, StoreAll clients
should connect to the parent bond of the user VIF or to a different VIF.
Ensure that your parent bonds, for example bond0, have a defined route:
1. Check for the default Linux OS route/gateway for each parent interface/bond that was
defined during the HP StoreAll installation by entering the following command at the
command prompt:
# route
The output from the command is the following:
The default destination is the default gateway/route for Linux. The default destination,
which was defined during the HP StoreAll installation, had the operating system default
gateway defined but not for StoreAll.
2. Display network interfaces controlled by StoreAll by entering the following command at
the command prompt:
# ibrix_nic -l
Notice if the "ROUTE" column is unpopulated for IFNAME.
for an example.
Network and VIF guidelines 35