Using VLAN Tagging

As of the release of Oracle Solaris 10 10/08 OS and Logical Domains 1.1 software, 802.1Q VLAN-Tagging support is available in the Logical Domains network infrastructure.

The virtual switch (vsw) and virtual network (vnet) devices support switching of Ethernet packets based on the virtual local area network (VLAN) identifier (ID) and handle the necessary tagging or untagging of Ethernet frames.

You can create multiple VLAN interfaces over a vnet device in a guest domain. You can use the Oracle Solaris OS ifconfig command to create a VLAN interface over a virtual network device, the same way it is used to configure a VLAN interface over any other physical network device. The additional requirement in the Logical Domains environment is that you must assign the vnet to the corresponding VLANs using the Logical Domains Manager CLI commands. Refer to the ldm(1M) for complete information about the Logical Domains Manager CLI commands.

Similarly, you can configure VLAN interfaces over a virtual switch device in the service domain. VLAN IDs 2 through 4094 are valid; VLAN ID 1 is reserved as the default-vlan-id.

When you create a vnet device on a guest domain, you must assign it to the required VLANs by specifying a port VLAN ID and zero or more VLAN IDs for this vnet, using the pvid= and vid= arguments to the ldm add-vnet command. This configures the virtual switch to support multiple VLANs in the Logical Domains network and switch packets using both MAC address and VLAN IDs in the network.

Similarly, any VLANs to which the vsw device itself should belong, when created as a network interface, must be configured in the vsw device using the pvid= and vid= arguments to the ldm add-vsw command.

You can change the VLANs to which a device belongs using ldm set-vnet or ldm set-vsw command.

Port VLAN ID (PVID)

The PVID indicates a VLAN to which the virtual network device needs to be a member, in untagged mode. In this case, the vsw device provides the necessary tagging or untagging of frames for the vnet device over the VLAN specified by its PVID. Any outbound frames from the virtual network that are untagged are tagged with its PVID by the virtual switch. Inbound frames tagged with this PVID are untagged by the virtual switch, before sending it to the vnet device. Thus, assigning a PVID to a vnet implicitly means that the corresponding virtual network port on the virtual switch is marked untagged for the VLAN specified by the PVID. You can have only one PVID for a vnet device.

The corresponding virtual network interface, when configured without a VLAN ID and using only its device instance, results in the interface being implicitly assigned to the VLAN specified by the virtual network's PVID.

For example, if you were to create vnet instance 0, using the following command, and if the pvid= argument for the vnet has been specified as 10, the vnet0 interface would be implicitly assigned to belong to the VLAN 10.

# ifconfig vnet0 plumb

VLAN ID (VID)

The VID indicates the VLAN to which a virtual network device or virtual switch needs to be a member, in tagged mode. The virtual network device sends and receives tagged frames over the VLANs specified by its VIDs. The virtual switch passes any frames that are tagged with the specified VID between the virtual network device and the external network.

Assign VLANs to a Virtual Switch and Virtual Network Device

1. Assign the virtual switch (vsw) to two VLANs.

   For example, configure VLAN 21 as untagged and VLAN 20 as tagged. Assign the virtual network (vnet) to three VLANs. Configure VLAN 20 as untagged and VLAN 21 and 22 as tagged.

   # ldm add-vsw net-dev=nxge0 pvid=21 vid=20 primary-vsw0 primary
   # ldm add-vnet pvid=20 vid=21,22 vnet01 primary-vsw0 ldom1

2. Create the VLAN interfaces.

   This example assumes that the instance number of these devices is 0 in the domains and the VLANs are mapped to these subnets:

   
   

   VLAN Subnet 20 192.168.1.0 (netmask: 255.255.255.0) 21 192.168.2.0 (netmask: 255.255.255.0) 22 192.168.3.0 (netmask: 255.255.255.0)

   1. Create the VLAN interface in the service (primary) domain.

      primary# ifconfig vsw0 plumb
      primary# ifconfig vsw0 192.168.2.100 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast + up
      primary# ifconfig vsw20000 plumb
      primary# ifconfig vsw20000 192.168.1.100 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast + up

   2. Create the VLAN interface in the guest (ldom1) domain.

      ldom1# ifconfig vnet0 plumb
      ldom1# ifconfig vnet0 192.168.1.101 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast + up
      ldom1# ifconfig vnet21000 plumb
      ldom1# ifconfig vnet21000 192.168.2.101 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast + up
      ldom1# ifconfig vnet22000 plumb
      ldom1# ifconfig vnet22000 192.168.3.101 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast + up

      For more information about how to configure VLAN interfaces in the Oracle Solaris OS, refer to Administering Virtual Local Area Networks in System Administration Guide: IP Services.

Install a Guest Domain When the Install Server Is in a VLAN

Be careful when installing a guest domain over the network (JumpStart) and the installation server is in a VLAN. Specify the VLAN ID that is associated with the installation server as the PVID of the virtual network device, and do not configure any tagged VLANs (vid) for that virtual network device. You must do this because OBP is not aware of VLANs and cannot handle VLAN-tagged network packets. The virtual switch handles the untagging and tagging of packets to and from the guest domain during network installation. After the network installation completes and the Oracle Solaris OS boots, you can configure the virtual network device to be tagged in that VLAN. You can then add the virtual network device to additional VLANs in tagged mode.

For information about using JumpStart to install a guest domain, see Perform a JumpStart Operation on a Guest Domain.

1. Initially configure the network device in untagged mode.

   For example, if the install server is in VLAN 21, configure the virtual network initially as follows:

   primary# ldm add-vnet pvid=21 vnet01 primary-vsw0 ldom1

2. After the installation is complete and the Oracle Solaris OS boots, configure the virtual network in tagged mode.

   primary# ldm set-vnet pvid= vid=21, 22, 23 vnet01 primary-vsw0 ldom1