crossbow discuss - Apr 2009 - VNICs only work when snoop is running

Howdy,

I have been testing out Crossbow inside VMWare server 2.X, and have
encountered a bizarre issue. When I try to ping the IP address
assigned to a VNIC, the ICMP echo requests don''t appear to reach the
host. But as soon as I snoop the interface the vnics were created on,
everything appears to work seamlessly. Has anyone seen this behavior
before? My configuration is attached.

Thanks,
- Ryan

bash-3.2# uname -a
SunOS nevada 5.11 snv_110 i86pc i386 i86pc

bash-3.2# dladm show-vnic
LINK         OVER         SPEED  MACADDRESS           MACADDRTYPE         VID
vnic1        switch0      0      2:8:20:7a:b8:c1      random              0
vnic2        switch0      0      2:8:20:d9:72:61      random              0
vnic3        e1000g0      1000   2:8:20:68:ae:1f      random              0

bash-3.2# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu
8232 index 1
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
e1000g0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index
2
        inet 192.168.1.32 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
        ether 0:c:29:87:7a:c6
vnic3: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 3
        inet 192.168.1.29 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
        ether 2:8:20:68:ae:1f
lo0: flags=2002000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv6,VIRTUAL> mtu
8252 index 1
        inet6 ::1/128

Matty,

It seems you are seeing the same issue previously discussed here:

http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=334039

The emulated e1000g running in VMware is not implementing all the  
semantics expected from e1000g. In particular Crossbow adds the MAC  
addresses for the VNICs to e1000g, but these addresses are ignored by  
the emulated e1000g, and packets for these MAC addresses don''t make it
to the guest domain.

If you can get VMware to put the underlying NIC in promiscuous mode  
and send packets for these MAC addresses to the domain, then Crossbow  
will dispatch them to the VNICs.

Nicolas.

On Apr 1, 2009, at 7:51 AM, Matty wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> I have been testing out Crossbow inside VMWare server 2.X, and have
> encountered a bizarre issue. When I try to ping the IP address
> assigned to a VNIC, the ICMP echo requests don''t appear to reach
the
> host. But as soon as I snoop the interface the vnics were created on,
> everything appears to work seamlessly. Has anyone seen this behavior
> before? My configuration is attached.
>
> Thanks,
> - Ryan
>
> bash-3.2# uname -a
> SunOS nevada 5.11 snv_110 i86pc i386 i86pc
>
> bash-3.2# dladm show-vnic
> LINK         OVER         SPEED  MACADDRESS            
> MACADDRTYPE         VID
> vnic1        switch0      0      2:8:20:7a:b8:c1       
> random              0
> vnic2        switch0      0      2:8:20:d9:72:61       
> random              0
> vnic3        e1000g0      1000   2:8:20:68:ae:1f       
> random              0
>
> bash-3.2# ifconfig -a
> lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu
> 8232 index 1
>        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
> e1000g0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500
> index 2
>        inet 192.168.1.32 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
>        ether 0:c:29:87:7a:c6
> vnic3: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500  
> index 3
>        inet 192.168.1.29 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
>        ether 2:8:20:68:ae:1f
> lo0: flags=2002000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv6,VIRTUAL> mtu
> 8252 index 1
>        inet6 ::1/128
> _______________________________________________
> crossbow-discuss mailing list
> crossbow-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/crossbow-discuss
-- 
Nicolas Droux - Solaris Kernel Networking - Sun Microsystems, Inc.
droux at sun.com - http://blogs.sun.com/droux