11.4 Oracle Linux: Creating VNICs and Associating Them with VLANs

If you plan to associate a VNIC with a VLAN, you should provide a VLAN identifier when mapping the MAC address, partition key, GUID, and Ethernet connector. In Exalogic, the default partition key (0xFFFF) is used.

To create a VNIC and associate with a VLAN, use the following example procedure:

On the gateway switch CLI, as root, complete the steps 1 through 6, as described in Set Up Ethernet Over InfiniBand (EoIB) on Oracle Linux.
Run the following command to create a VNIC and associate it with a VLAN (for example, with VLAN 10, as shown in Tag the Ethernet Connectors With a VLAN Identifier):

# createvnic 1A-ETH-3 -GUID 00:21:28:56:d0:a2:c0:a0 -mac a2:c0:a0:a8:1:1 -vlan 10 -pkey default

Where 1A-ETH-3 is the Ethernet connector, 00:21:28:56:d0:a2:c0:a0 is the GUID, a2:c0:a0:a8:1:1 is the dummy MAC address, 10 is the VLAN identifier, and default is the partition key used in Exalogic.

This example creates a VNIC, such as eth4.
To create a second VNIC using the same Ethernet connector and GUID, run the following command to tag the VNIC with a different VLAN identifier (11):

# createvnic 1A-ETH-3 -GUID 00:21:28:56:d0:a2:c0:a0 -mac a2:c0:a0:a8:1:a -vlan 11 -pkey default

Where 1A-ETH-3 is the Ethernet connector, 00:21:28:56:d0:a2:c0:a0 is the GUID, a2:c0:a0:a8:1:a is the dummy MAC address defined for this second interface, 11 is the VLAN identifier, and default is the partition key used in Exalogic.

This example creates a VNIC, such as eth5.
Run the following command to verify the VNICs:
# showvnics

The following message is displayed:
```
ID  STATE    FLG  IOA_GUID       NODE    IID    MAC    VLN  PKEY  GW
--- --------  --- ----------------------- ---------- ---- -------------
  8 UP    N 00:21:28:00:01:A0:A3:65 computenode1 EL-C 192.168.10.29 0000 a2:c0:a0:a8:1:1 10  ffff   1A-ETH-3
  9 UP    N 00:21:28:00:01:A0:A3:65 computenode1 EL-C 192.168.10.29 0001 a2:c0:a0:a8:1:a 11  ffff   1A-ETH-3
```
Tip:

After creating the interfaces, you can run the ifconfig command with the -a option to verify the MAC address on the compute node. For example, to verify the new interface and its MAC address, run the following command on the Oracle Linux compute node for which the VNIC was created:

# ifconfig -a eth4

The output of this command shows the HWADDR, which is the MAC address you defined for the VNIC in Set Up Ethernet Over InfiniBand (EoIB) on Oracle Linux.
If you want your VNIC configuration to persist across reboots, you should save VNIC configuration to a file. For information about doing this on Oracle Linux, seeSet Up Ethernet Over InfiniBand (EoIB) on Oracle Linuxfor more information. Be sure to create a bonded interface comprising two VNICs on Oracle Linux, for high availability purposes.