VIO SEA Adapters

karlochacon · August 9, 2013, 2:46am

hi guys
BTW pretty new to VIO

I inherited 2 I BM Power Server - blades PS701 - One is already configured using en8

# lsdev -Cc adapter | grep ent
ent0    Available       Logical Host Ethernet Port (lp-hea)
ent1    Available       Logical Host Ethernet Port (lp-hea)
ent2    Available 04-20 Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter (14106703)
ent3    Available 04-21 Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter (14106703)
ent4    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent5    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent6    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent7    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent8    Available       Shared Ethernet Adapter
ent9    Available       Shared Ethernet Adapter
# ifconfig -a
en8: flags=1e080863,180<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),CHAIN>
        inet 10.116.125.xx netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.6.25.255

I am trying to understand this topic about:
Logical Host Ethernet Port (lp-hea)
Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter
Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)

I really don't why too many adapters when my server only has 2 physical NICs

Well now I need to configure this new PS701 I configured an ip to en0 and is working but seeing configuration in the other PS701 I don't have any
Shared Ethernet Adapter

lsdev -Cc adapter | grep ent
ent0    Available       Logical Host Ethernet Port (lp-hea)
ent1    Available       Logical Host Ethernet Port (lp-hea)
ent2    Available 04-20 Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter (14106703)
ent3    Available 04-21 Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter (14106703)
ent4    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent5    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent6    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent7    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)

So 3 questions:

Why too many virtual adapters l-lan and lp-hea ?
How do I configure these SEA?
Just creating SEA I will provide High availability to my PS701? I mean when adapter 1 fails adapter 2 will take over and LPARs will continue having connectivity?

thanks a lot

ibmtech · August 9, 2013, 1:35pm

Hello there,

lp-hea are the native adapters attached to the Balde itself (they are HEA, and each HEA has 4 Logical ports). We use them, say for the first installation or for servers where you don't want redundancy, they are SPOF (single point of failure) adapters.

Virtual adapters (l-lan), are created at VIOS/client level, we create them at VIO level to define the priority of VIOS and add multiple vlans to it. At client level we create those for it to communicate to outer world.

Physical cable are the actual cables from which the traffic goes in and out of the Blade, without the physical port your virtual adapter at VIO are of no use.

Now coming to SEA (shared ethernet adapter), to create a SEA you need a physical adapter, a virtual adapter (actually two, one with trunking priority, vlans (if you want) and other is called control channel adapter, ctrl chan adapter is the heart beat of SEA). Then the VIO create a new adapter called SEA, remember that SEA will not be visible from HMC, you can only see it when you are in VIO.

If you have SEA, it will be redundant and you can avoid SPOF.

karlochacon · August 9, 2013, 3:43pm

ibmtech:

Hello there,

lp-hea are the native adapters attached to the Balde itself (they are HEA, and each HEA has 4 Logical ports). We use them, say for the first installation or for servers where you don't want redundancy, they are SPOF (single point of failure) adapters.

Virtual adapters (l-lan), are created at VIOS/client level, we create them at VIO level to define the priority of VIOS and add multiple vlans to it. At client level we create those for it to communicate to outer world.

Physical cable are the actual cables from which the traffic goes in and out of the Blade, without the physical port your virtual adapter at VIO are of no use.

Now coming to SEA (shared ethernet adapter), to create a SEA you need a physical adapter, a virtual adapter (actually two, one with trunking priority, vlans (if you want) and other is called control channel adapter, ctrl chan adapter is the heart beat of SEA). Then the VIO create a new adapter called SEA, remember that SEA will not be visible from HMC, you can only see it when you are in VIO.

If you have SEA, it will be redundant and you can avoid SPOF.

thanks a lot

so for what I understood I have to use these to create SEA

ent2    Available 04-20 Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter (14106703)
ent3    Available 04-21 Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter (14106703)
ent4    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent5    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent6    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent7    Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)

is it too much to ask who to do it? is by command or using smitty

thanks a lot

ibmtech · August 9, 2013, 4:06pm

Yes indeed, you are correct.
But, again there are few things you have to consider before creating SEA, you mentioned that these are Blade Servers, so how are you viewing them, through HMC or IVM? How many VIOS you have on each Blade?

If you have only one VIO on each blade, then SEA holds no good, coz it won't failover. If you have two VIOS, then only you are good to go for SEA.

Now, considering you have two VIOS, we have to figure out which virtual adapter (out of the 4) is your primary adapter and which is control channel adapter. You can check the profile (of virtual adapter) if a adapter has been check as access external network, and given a trunking priority then it is your primary adapter, for control channel adapter you WONT select access external network, and most shops give it a vlan no of 99 (purely environment based, so such standard), so as to distinguish control channel adapter from others.

You cannot use smitty (in rksh), you have to use mkdev command to create SEA.
$ mkvdev -sea "real adapt" -vadapter "primary virt adapt" -default "primary virt adapt" -defaultid "PVID" -attr ha_mode=auto ctrl_chan="control channel adapt"

Hope this helps.

karlochacon · August 9, 2013, 4:59pm

ibmtech:

Yes indeed, you are correct.
But, again there are few things you have to consider before creating SEA, you mentioned that these are Blade Servers, so how are you viewing them, through HMC or IVM? How many VIOS you have on each Blade?

If you have only one VIO on each blade, then SEA holds no good, coz it won't failover. If you have two VIOS, then only you are good to go for SEA.

Now, considering you have two VIOS, we have to figure out which virtual adapter (out of the 4) is your primary adapter and which is control channel adapter. You can check the profile (of virtual adapter) if a adapter has been check as access external network, and given a trunking priority then it is your primary adapter, for control channel adapter you WONT select access external network, and most shops give it a vlan no of 99 (purely environment based, so such standard), so as to distinguish control channel adapter from others.

You cannot use smitty (in rksh), you have to use mkdev command to create SEA.
$ mkvdev -sea "real adapt" -vadapter "primary virt adapt" -default "primary virt adapt" -defaultid "PVID" -attr ha_mode=auto ctrl_chan="control channel adapt"

Hope this helps.

Yes this is IBM Blades.

I am using IVM.
Just one VIO is installed.

So in that case having just one VIOs which is the option for high availability when one physical NIC fails?

I added a PDF with IVM NICs Config

ibmtech · August 9, 2013, 5:23pm

Ok,
When you click "View/Modify Host Ethernet Adapters", you are seeing two HEA's, now check the one on the top and select properties,
under general tab check mark the option called "Allow virtual Ethernet bridging" click ok and do the same for the other HEA adapter.

Then go to "Virtual Ethernet Bridge" and you will see a adapter.

Basically you are bridging two HEA adapters for redundancy.

karlochacon · August 9, 2013, 5:58pm

thanks a lot

you know I can continue bothering you with question since I pretty lost in this topic for instance you say SEA makes no sense when having one VIO but my previous partner configured SEA... weird.

any documentation to read and continue after this since now I have to understand more about networking in VIO

ibmtech · August 9, 2013, 6:33pm

Hmm,
My perception was different, I was taking into account the actual failover of network from one VIOS to other VIOS.

Since you have only one VIO server, the dual redundancy of HEA is termed as SEA. Like when you allow the ethernet bridging, it is considering and naming it as SEA (as it is sharing the ports). unless you don't do SEA, you cannot share the network adapter with clients, so in simple language, we are creating SEA to share the network with client (allowing them to connect to outer world).

But, make sure before you do allow ethernet bridging, you do etherchanneling on the HEA.

MichaelFelt · August 13, 2013, 4:00pm

I recommend you look at Nigel's movies: AIX Movies
He has a section on IVM - much better that anything I made - way back when.