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Date:      Fri, 24 Jan 1997 13:43:57 +0200 (EET)
From:      Andrew Stesin <stesin@gu.net>
To:        John Polstra <jdp@polstra.com>
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Fault-tolerant network with 2 ethernets 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSI.3.95.970124130257.5513E-100000@creator.gu.kiev.ua>
In-Reply-To: <199701232316.PAA21713@austin.polstra.com>

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On Thu, 23 Jan 1997, John Polstra wrote:

> The point about 100BaseT failing differently from coax-based ethernet
> (the whole net doesn't go down if there's a cable problem) is well
> taken.

	You still have a hub, though -- hub's failure
	is similar to a coax' failure, everything on the segment
	dies.

> > Non-simple solution.  Three addresses for every machine.  one on
> > each ethernet segment, and one off the loopback address.  

	That's a usual way of doing things on routers -- router-ID
	is an alias tied to the loopback.

>     ifconfig lo0 inet 192.168.3.21 alias netmask 0xffffffff
> 				^^
> 				||
> 				host-specific, of course

	Yes. But make sure that a set of IP addresses
	used for loopback-aliased router-IDs is _not_ covered
	by any of the subnets (address ranges).

> At the application layer, the 192.168.3.x addresses are the ones
> that would be used.

	Yes, probably. But just to be sure, I'd prefer to use
	gethostbyname() and try all the addresses for the given
	hostname in turn -- or even simultaneously.

> The applications would never use the real addresses of the ethernets.

	Yes. This may be achieved just with a proper DNS:

	Direct zone:

		host1		IN A	192.168.3.1
		; do we really need the 2 following?
		;		IN A	192.168.1.1
		;		IN A	192.168.2.1

	Reverse zone:

		192.168.3.1	IN PTR	host1.dom.ain.
		192.168.1.1	IN PTR	host1.dom.ain.
		192.168.2.1	IN PTR	host1.dom.ain.

> Finally, each host would advertise a route to its 192.168.3.x
> address on both ethernet interfaces.  In effect, each host acts as a
> gateway to itself.

	Yes. OSPF will do this for you almost automagically --
	you just use a "stubhost" to describe this alias (router-ID)
	in "ospf" section of gated.conf.

> I read up on OSPF and gated this morning, and it looks like they're
> perfect for solving this problem.  The documentation even seems to
> suggest the trick of adding a second address to the loopback
> interface, if I understand it right.

	Yes. This is a usual approach, as I noticed already.

--
		Best,
			Andrew Stesin

		nic-hdl: ST73-RIPE




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