ESX(i), JunOS, and 802.3ad

This is not a post about LACP. This post is about failover redundancy (active/passive) and Link Aggregation.

Not every installation is appropriate for the Distributed Virtual Switch (dVS). There are some very nice things about it, including, but not limited to LACP, centralized port group management, CLI, port mirroring, and an API. Depending on the size of the installation, these may or may not be applicable. Almost without regard to the size of the installation, redundancy is still needed.

Steps

There are 2 parts to the vCenter config:

  • Add the second nic to the vSwitch
  • Configure Teaming/Failover

Under the config section for the esx host, choose manage, and then networking. Select the vSwitch you want to modify (I modified vSwitch0). Click the Adapter button and add an adapter. Then click the edit button and choose Teaming and Failover (Teaming is what Linux and VMware call link aggregation). Ensure that the following are set:

  • Load balancing: Route based on IP hash
  • Network failure detection: Link status only
  • Notify switches: Yes
  • Failback: Yes

Ensure that the nic you just added is listed under Standby adapters. This is important. Once you click OK, the settings will be applied and we can move on to configuring the switch.

Screenshots from vCenter 5.5

JunOS bits

On the switch side, we are configuring an EX4200 running JunOS 14.1X53-D10.1 (This should work back at least as far as 11, but hasn’t been tested prior to that). It should be noted that:

  • The primary/backup lines are critical
  • The primary/backup ports need to match what you configured on the VMware side

With out them, this setup will fail.

JunOS Config:

 1	set interfaces ge-0/0/1 description "esx01 Ports"
 2	set interfaces ge-0/0/1 ether-options 802.3ad ae0
 3	set interfaces ge-0/0/1 ether-options 802.3ad ae0 primary
 4	set interfaces ge-0/0/2 description "esx01 Ports"
 5	set interfaces ge-0/0/2 ether-options 802.3ad ae0
 6	set interfaces ge-0/0/2 ether-options 802.3ad ae0 backup
 7
 8	set interfaces ae0 description "esx01.cmhome"
 9	set interfaces ae0 unit 0 family ethernet-switching port-mode trunk
10	set interfaces ae0 unit 0 family ethernet-switching vlan members all
11	set interfaces ae0 aggregated-ether-options link-protection
12	set interfaces ae0 aggregated-ether-options minimum-links 1
13	set interfaces ae0 aggregated-ether-options link-speed 1g

You should now be able to pull one of the cables in the aggregate with out losing your connection to the ESXi node. If so, congratulations, you have redundant links setup.

Credit for the research goes to @RaymondHardman

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