Creating a second-level vif in an active/active configuration

You might want to create two second-level vifs on an active/active configuration so that you can access data from both storage systems even if one of the storage systems in the configuration fails.

Before You Begin

You must ensure that all interfaces to be included in the vif are configured to be down. You can use the ifconfig command to configure an interface down.

Steps

Enter the following commands on StorageSystem 1 to create two multimode vifs: vif create multi -b {mac|ip} vif_name1 if1 if2vif create multi -b {mac|ip} vif_name2 if3 if4
-b specifies the type of load-balancing method.
mac specifies MAC-address based

ip specifies IP-address based (default)
Enter the following command on StorageSystem 1 to create a second-level interface from the multimode vifs: vif create single secondlev1vif_name1 vif_name2
Enter the following commands on StorageSystem 2 to create two multimode vifs: vif create multi -b {mac|ip} vif_name3 if5 if6 vif create multi -b {mac|ip} vif_name4 if7 if8
Enter the following command on StorageSystem 2 to create a second-level interface from the multimode vifs: vif create single secondlev2vif_name3 vif_name4
Enter the following command on StorageSystem 1 to configure the second-level vifs for takeover:
ifconfig secondlev1 partner secondlev2
Enter the following command on StorageSystem 2 to configure the second-level vifs for takeover: ifconfig secondlev2 partner secondlev1

The operation performed using the vif create command is not persistent across reboots unless the command is added to the /etc/rc file.

In steps 5 and 6, secondlev1 and secondlev2 (arguments to the partner option) must be interface names and not interface IP addresses. If secondlev1 is a virtual interface, secondlev2 must also be a virtual interface.

Example

The following commands create a second-level vif in an active/active configuration. In this example, IP-based load balancing is used for the multimode vifs.

On StorageSystem 1:

vif create multi Firstlev1 e1 e2

vif create multi Firstlev2 e3 e4

vif create single Secondlev1 Firstlev1 Firstlev2

On StorageSystem 2:

vif create multi Firstlev3 e5 e6

vif create multi Firstlev4 e7 e8

vif create single Secondlev2 Firstlev3 Firstlev4

On StorageSystem 1:

ifconfig Secondlev1 partner Secondlev2

On StorageSystem 2:

ifconfig Secondlev2 partner Secondlev1