Trunk Port, VLANS, Virtual IP failover and differing subnets

I am trying to setup failover with replication. I'm looking through the "How to setup DSS V6 iSCSI Failover with XenServer using Multipath" and something I don't fully understand.

The diagrams show that the physical interface is on a different subnet then the virtual IP and the interface complains and gives a warning if you try to create multiple interfaces in the same subnet. I showed the diagram to our network guy and he said I would need to have trunked ports and setup vlans.

So we did this and now I am wondering how to configure that. Searching through the forums it seems that DSS V6 does not support Vlans?

I came across this as I was attempting to setup my Oracle VM Servers to use trunked ports as well and that seems to be quite an endeavor.

So, I guess my question is, how am I supposed to have a physical interface on a different subnet as the virtual and not use a trunked port on a switch with VLANS?

I contacted my re-seller for support as I was wondering if the physical card actually needed to be routable or if it would suffice for the virtual IP to be routable. He said that he thought that only the Virtual IP subnet had to be routable but when I attempted this it didn't work.

To test this I has set the physical interface to xxx.xxx.0.4 and the virtual to xxx.xxx.1.4 with the switch port configured for xxx.xxx.1/24. I tried to ping the virtual ip and it did not respond. Maybe this is a bad test?

So now I have trunked ports on multiple vlans and don't know how I am supposed to configure DSS to work.

Can someone enlighten me? Have I totally messed this up?

thanks,

You dont need VLAN if your doing the MPIO, just create the VIP addresses on each NIC that will be connected to the XEN subnet or other servers that are the initiators.

So does that mean the physical interface would just have a dummy IP on a non-routable subnet? I thought I tried this and it didn't work but I will try it again.

Ok, I am still not understanding something. In the "How to Setup DSS V6 iSCSI Failover with XenServer using Multipath", on page 3, there is a diagram. It lists all of the interfaces on both the primary and the secondary nodes as "Auxiliary connection (Heartbeat)". But if the physical interface that is connected to a switch is not on a trunked port with VLAN how would that heartbeat work as the Virtual IP (on a different subnet) would be the only one routable. Thus when the primary is working and has the Virtual IP on eth1 and eth2, the secondary has not IP on a routable subnet since it's physical interface IP would not be routable (unless the port is connected to is trunked).

What am I missing or not understanding here? This is making my setup of Open-E DSS extremely difficult and frustrating.

Some help would be greatly appreciated!

thanks,
-Tomas

this thread is full of confusion ....lol

Just for grins, set up dss nics in seperate subnets(as shown) with the VIP also in seperate subnets. set your default gateway on the default management port.
Go to the console(CNTRL+ALT+T) and try to ping the other servers IP's.
No need for VLANS, just make proper gateway assignment, and configure router accordingly.
Even if the machines are connected together on the same switch, you should be fine.

I guess I am not grinning or laughing and still don't have it working right.

Here is my current setup:
DSS:
Interfaces:
eth0 - 192.168.137.102/255.255.255.0, BC: auto, GW: 192.168.137.240
eth1 - 10.100.101.4/255.255.255.0, BC: auto: GW:

Default GW: eth0 192.168.137.240

Failover:
eth0 -
eth1 - Virtual IP: 10.100.100.4/255.255.255.0, BC: 10.100.100.255, GW:
(NOTE: when I use this Virtual IP I get the message that "The entered Virtual IP is in the same subnetwork as one of the network interfaces or Virtual IPs that already exist in the system.
It is recommend to use IP that has a unique subnetwork class and is not used in any other place in your configuration.
Do you want to continue?")
As far as I can tell it is in a different subnet and not used anywhere else.

Server:
bond0 - 192.168.137.104 BC:192.168.137.255/255.255.255.0, GW: 192.168.137.240
eth1.800 - 10.100.100.13/255.255.255.0, BC: 10.100.100.255, GW:

Ping Test from DSS to 10.100.100.13 fails

If I setup the following and remove the Virtual IP then I can ping the server:
DSS:
Interfaces:
eth0 - 192.168.137.102/255.255.255.0, BC: auto, GW: 192.168.137.240
eth1 - 10.100.100.4/255.255.255.0, BC: auto: GW:

Default GW: eth0 192.168.137.240

Failover:
eth0 -
eth1 -

Server:
bond0 - 192.168.137.104 BC:192.168.137.255/255.255.255.0, GW: 192.168.137.240
eth1.800 - 10.100.100.13/255.255.255.0, BC: 10.100.100.255, GW:


So I'm still stuck and not making any headway?
Can anyone help me un-muddle this?

Additional information:
DSS:
eth0 is on vlan 100
eth1 is on vlan 800

Server:
bond0 is attached to eth0 and is in vlan 100
eth1.800 is on vlan 800

thanks,
-Tomas