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Date:      Thu, 02 May 2002 10:20:23 -0700
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        Bogdan TARU <bgd@icomag.de>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: network design
Message-ID:  <3CD17557.7BC1F7C0@mindspring.com>
References:  <20020502180817.K22759-100000@fw.cgn.icom> <3CD17351.893F80A3@mindspring.com>

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Terry Lambert wrote:
> Unfortunately, the FreeBSD ethernet interface isn't terribly
> smart.  Ideally, it would provide a virtual interface per VIP,
> all the way down to the card; it doesn't.

Probably wasn't very clear here.

The Tigon II, for example, supports 4 VIPs, the Intel Gigabit
ethernet supports 16 VIPs (VIP-based virtual MAC addresses;
see the VRRP RFC for details).

THis means that for a Tigon II card, instead of just:

	tg0

You should have one interface per MAC address.  So if you set
two additional MAC addresses on the card (no interface for this
in FreeBSD currently), then you should have:

	tg0	<- hardware MAC
	tg0a	<- VRRP MAC #1
	tg0b	<- VRRP MAC #2

You also need to handle "active" vs. "inactive".  You should
leave the interface "up" (resetting a Tigon II interface
reloads the firmware because FreeBSD doesn't have a seperate
"init" vs. "attach entry point for firmware loading), and be
able to control turning ARP responses on and off for the card
to avoid confusing the hell out of switches.

If you are confused, read the RFC and look at the Linux and
commercial VRRP implementation documentation.  There's
nothing really "secret" about VRRP.

-- Terry

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