cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
1829
Views
15
Helpful
5
Replies

Inter-Vlan Routing in vPC topology

Hi all, 

i am just laying around with two nexus switches and testing some features. I config vPC between the two switches and also did a member port to a catalyst switch. Everythg works fine. I decided to do inter-vlan routing.

I connected a catalyst switch to the two nexus switches and did vPC with it and make it a trunk port
Everything is fine.
I created vl 10,20 on the three switches.
on N9K1....SVI for int Vl 10 = 10.234.100.1
           SVI for int Vl 20 = 10.234.200.1

on N9K2    SVI for int Vl 10 = 10.234.100.2
           SVI for int Vl 20 = 10.234.200.2 


I created two access port on the catalyst switcht, one to vl 10 and the other to vl 20
I plugged in two systems and want to test inter vlan routing.

PC1: 10.234.100.4
     GW: 10.234.100.1

PC2: 10.234.200.4
  GW:10.234.200.1

To my greastest surprise, they cant ping each other.

After so much trying to figure out what was wrong

i changed PC2 GW to 10.234.200.2

and ping started going.


PLS WHAT EXACTLY IS HAPPENING. IS THERE A KNOWLEDGE GAP AS REGARD NEXUS I AM MISSING.

PLS HELP!!! 


thanks

5 Replies 5

Hello ,

 

Are you able to ping 10.234.200.1 while it was not working? 

Also are you allowing these vlan in the Peer-link.

 

Thanks,

Madhu

On the PC with this IP addressing 10.234.200.4 & gw of 10.234.200.1, I can ping all the svi but on the PC with this I'll addressing 10.234.100.4 & gw of 10.234.100.1 I can't only 10.234.200.2. I can ping all other svi.

I agree with Steve.

+5

Madhu

Steve Fuller
Level 9
Level 9

Hi,

This is possibly due to the loop avoidance mechansim built into vPC. Essentially a Nexus device running vPC will not forward trafifc on a vPC member port if the traffic has crossed the peer link.

When the traffic is sent from the PC attached to the Catalyst switch, that switch will make a hashing decision at Layer-2 to decide which physical link of the port-channel to use. If the traffic destined to the IP address 10.234.100.1 takes the physical path to N9K2, it will then have to cross the peer-link to get to N9K1. That's OK, but consider the return traffic.

The MAC address table on N9K1 knows the MAC for the PC via the peer-link and will forward the return traffic on that link. Now, based on the loop avoidance mechansim i.e., a switch will not forward traffic on any vPC member port if that traffic has crossed the peer-link, N9K2 will drop the return traffic.

You may also be able to solve the problem by adding the peer-gateway command within the vpc domain <domain-id> context. For example:

!
vpc domain 1
  [..]
  peer-gateway
  [..]
!

This commands allows a switch to route traffic destined to the MAC address of the peer i.e., N9K1 can route traffic destined to the MAC address of N9K2. This is actually considered a best practice anyway for vPC.

In reality you probably wouldn't have this configuration, but instead use a First Hop Router Procotocol such as HSRP which would be your default gateway IP. In a vPC environment both routers are active from a data plane perspective and so you'd avoid this issue. The use of HSRP with vPC is explained in the HSRP/VRRP active/active with vPC section on page 78 of the Design and Configuration Guide: Best Practices for Virtual Port Channels (vPC) on Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches.

The above design guide is a good source of information, but a long read. If you're new to vPC then an excellent starting point is the Quick Start :: Virtual Port Channel (vPC)  guide. This shows typical configurations, but also has a number of recomendations and best practices documented.

Regards

Thanks for your response, quiet elaborate. Pls can you help with a best practice config to achieve this setup. If you don't mind I can share the complete topology of the project. Thanks
Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: