Link aggregation, static IP for two NIC ports

[DV_Chris]

Hi all, fist post and not very familiar with TrueNAS so please have mercy.

Have a TrueNAS box here with an Intel dual port 10G card and a HP JH295A switch.

All devices are in the same network 192.168.254.xxx

Wanted to assign the IPs 192.168.254.201 and 192.168.254.202 to the NIC ports but that doesn't work.

Any help welcome.

 

[jgreco]

Sure it does. You need to set up a LACP with the two interfaces to your switch. Then you assign your primary and secondary address to the new LACP interface.

Some background reading:

Resource - LACP ... friend or foe?

Too many LACP discussions lately. Here's what you need to know. 1) Link aggregation groups are an interesting way to boost network throughput. They're typically managed by a protocol called Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP). Link...

www.truenas.com

and also

Resource - Multiple network interfaces on a single subnet

We've had a number of people over the years bring up the topic of multiple network interfaces on a single subnet. Often done by Windows administrators or storage admins, where it works to varying degrees, this is sadly not proper IP networking...

www.truenas.com

 

[DV_Chris]

Thank you for the quick reply. Seems that I have to to my homework.

Currently the two ports are set as:

ix0 (static): 192.168.254.200
ix1 (DHCP): 192.168.254.105

Want to create Link Aggregation with static address 192.168.254.201 which results in this error:

The network 192.168.254.0/24 is already in use by another interface.

What I am doing wrong?

 

[jgreco]

The problem with setting up LACP is that you often have to do it from the console, because you are doing "brain surgery on self".

You have to remove the IP addresses from ix0 and ix1. Then you create an LACP interface with ix0 and ix1 as members. Then you put your 192.168.254.201 on the lacp interface, along with any other aliases (.200 perhaps) that you'd like.

The problem is that the required set of steps momentarily removes all IP connectivity from the host, so if you don't have an IPMI/BMC, or a 1GbE ethernet interface on another network that can temporarily offer the GUI console, you have to do this at the actual NAS console (VGA/KB, serial, whatever). If you can maintain IP connectivity via another interface such as a 1GbE, this can all be done by the GUI of course.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Configure the new one of the two target ports on the switch for LACP leaving the current one as is. Then removing the IP address, creating the LAGG, re-adding the IP address etc. should all work with the regular "test --> save" workflow of TrueNAS. If it does, finally add the previously only port on the switch to the port-channel.

 

[jgreco]

Hm, that might work.

 

[DV_Chris]

Thank you all!

Since I have both, 1G ports and an IPMI, I was able to set everything up.

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

Configure the new one of the two target ports on the switch for LACP leaving the current one as is. Then removing the IP address, creating the LAGG, re-adding the IP address etc. should all work

I haven't done it that way with FreeNAS since I always have console access, but I have done that on ESXi when migrating from a standard Vswitch to a distributed one. It worked quite well for me in that case, so I expect it would work just as well for FreeNAS.