Caution! I deleted my previous post on how to configure vLAG on Brocade VDX 6740T-1G switch to work with SafeNet Network HSM because actually it didn’t work as it should. If you get a cached version somewhere please disregard it.
I have no idea how I managed to get bonding to operate in round-robin mode on SafeNet Network HSM:
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[hsm-node-1] lunash:>network interface bonding show
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Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.4.0-2 (October 7, 2008)
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Bonding Mode: load balancing (round-robin)
Because once the appliance was rebooted the bonding mode has changed to active-backup and the whole story with LAGs became irrelevant. The primary interface started flapping again and the only way to stabilize connectivity to HSM was to disable the slave interface.
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[hsm-node-1] lunash:>network interface bonding show
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Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.4.0-2 (October 7, 2008)
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Bonding Mode: fault-tolerance (active-backup)
So, back to the original subject of the post: how do you configure a LAG on Brocade switch to work with SafeNet Network HSM? The answer is — you don’t. In fault-tolerance bonding mode, when one interface is active and another one is backup (read passive), you don’t create any LAGs on the switch. All you have to do is to bring both interfaces to switchport mode access mode and ensure that VLAN and speed settings are identical. Here is how our switch config looks like:
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!
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interface TenGigabitEthernet 12/0/2
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speed 1000
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description -=HSM-NODE-1:ETH0=-
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switchport
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switchport mode access
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switchport access vlan 12
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spanning-tree shutdown
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no fabric isl enable
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no fabric trunk enable
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no shutdown
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!
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interface TenGigabitEthernet 13/0/2
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speed 1000
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description -=HSM-NODE-1:ETH1=-
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switchport
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switchport mode access
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switchport access vlan 12
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spanning-tree shutdown
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no fabric isl enable
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no fabric trunk enable
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no shutdown
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!
Now, you certainly lose link aggregation and load balancing functionalities, because only one interface will be passing traffic at a time. The slave interface comes into play only if the primary interface is down. We’re still good though when it comes to redundancy — you can disconnect the cable from ETH0 without any impact on connectivity.
On a HSM side, you don’t have many options so you follow the standard procedure: assign the IP address to the bond (network interface bonding config -ip x.x.x.x -netmask y.y.y.y -gateway z.z.z.z) and bring it up (network interface bonding enable).
To check the status:
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[hsm-node-1] lunash:>network interface bonding show
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Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.4.0-2 (October 7, 2008)
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Bonding Mode: fault-tolerance (active-backup)
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Primary Slave: eth0 (primary_reselect failure)
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Currently Active Slave: eth1
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MII Status: up
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MII Polling Interval (ms): 100
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Up Delay (ms): 2000
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Down Delay (ms): 0
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Slave Interface: eth0
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MII Status: up
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Speed: 1000 Mbps
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Duplex: full
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Link Failure Count: 0
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Permanent HW addr: 00:15:c4:n7:13:06
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Slave Interface: eth1
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MII Status: up
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Speed: 1000 Mbps
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Duplex: full
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Link Failure Count: 0
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Permanent HW addr: 00:15:c4:n7:6a:34
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Status for eth0:
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Link detected: yes
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Status for eth1:
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Link detected: yes
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Command Result : 0 (Success)
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[hsm-node-1] lunash:>status interface
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bond0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:C4:N7:13:06
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inet addr:192.168.100.42 Bcast:192.168.100.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
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UP BROADCAST RUNNING MASTER MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
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RX packets:13479 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
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TX packets:3183 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
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collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
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RX bytes:1059045 (1.0 MiB) TX bytes:446623 (436.1 KiB)
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eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:C4:N7:13:06
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UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
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RX packets:12670 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
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TX packets:2082 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
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collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
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RX bytes:996811 (973.4 KiB) TX bytes:300205 (293.1 KiB)
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Interrupt:58 Memory:fb4c0000-fb4e0000
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eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:C4:N7:6A:34
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UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
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RX packets:809 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
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TX packets:1101 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
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collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
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RX bytes:62234 (60.7 KiB) TX bytes:146418 (142.9 KiB)
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Interrupt:169 Memory:fb6e0000-fb700000
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Command Result : 0 (Success)