We are in the process of delivering bonded services that will rely on the layer 3 and 4 hashing algorithm to help split the traffic over the bonded circuits, however we have hit a major problem. Many of our customers have their services delivered via 802.1q, and our testing has just shown that VLAN traffic always travels over the same bonded circuit regardless of IP or port. Removing the tag confirms correct operation of the hashing algorithm.
We would be grateful to know if anyone else has encountered this problem, and if there is a fix.
Please accept our thanks in advance,
If you need to bond tagged networks, use 802.3ad mode with layer 2 and 3 hashing (layer 3 and 4 isn’t compatible with 802.3ad). That should work fine. It is specifically part of the RFC, so if it doesn’t, raise a bug.
Any specific reason to want layer 3 and 4 hashing? MAC addresses, VLAN tags, and IPv4/6 addresses all being used when determining the link should be plenty to balance fairly.
Thanks again for the prompt reply.
Customers use layer 2 circuits across our network to provide their own Layer 3 solution. So although a VLAN, most of these circuits will only have a routing subnet across them in which case the source and destination MAC’s will always be the same.
Using both IP and port therefore seemed the best way to ensure an even split across the bonded circuits rather than relying on IP alone.
Is the bond not able to identify IP and port when a VLAN tag is present?
Regards,
Write to support, and keep the thread updated with how it goes so others can find it. According to the bonding manual 802.3ad explicitly includes VLAN headers.