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Prepare your network for ONTAP NFS trunking

Contributors netapp-bhouser netapp-ahibbard netapp-aaron-holt netapp-forry netapp-mdavidson netapp-aoife netapp-aherbin
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To take advantage of NFSv4.1 trunking, the LIFs in a trunking group must reside on the same node and have home ports on the same node. The LIFs should be configured in a failover group on the same node.

About this task

A one-to-one mapping of LIFs and NICs yields the greatest performance gain but is not required to enable trunking. Having at least two NICs installed can offer a performance benefit, but it is not required.

All LIFs in the trunking group should belong to the same failover group. Note that when the LIFs are configured in a failover group on the same node, a controller failover on that node can cause the LIFs to go offline. If the LIFs are not configured in a failover group on the same node and failover to another node, then trunking will no longer function.

You should adjust the trunking failover group any time you add or remove connections (and underlying NICs) from a failover group.

Before you begin

  • You must know the port names associated with the NICs to create a failover group.

  • The ports must all be on the same node.

Steps

  1. Verify the names and status of the network ports you plan to use:

    network port show

  2. Create the failover group:

    network interface failover-groups create -vserver <svm_name> -failover-group <failover_group_name> -targets <ports_list>

    Note It is not a requirement to have a failover group, but it is strongly recommended.

    • <svm_name> is the name of the SVM containing the NFS server.

    • <ports_list> is the list of ports that will be added to the failover group.

      Ports are added in the format <node_name>:<port_number>, for example: node1:e0c.

      The following command creates failover group fg3 for SVM vs1 and adds three ports:

      network interface failover-groups create -vserver vs1 -failover-group fg3 -targets cluster1-01:e0c,cluster1-01:e0d,cluster1-01:e0e

      Learn more about failover groups.

      Learn more about network interface failover-groups create in the ONTAP command reference.

  3. If needed, create LIFs for members of the trunking group:

    network interface create -vserver <svm_name> -lif <lif_name> -home-node <node_name> -home-port <port_name> -address <IP_address> -netmask <IP_address> [-service-policy <policy>] [-auto-revert <true|false>]

    • -home-node - the node to which the LIF returns when the network interface revert command is run on the LIF.

      You can also specify whether the LIF should automatically revert to the home-node and home-port with the -auto-revert option.

    • -home-port is the physical or logical port to which the LIF returns when the network interface revert command is run on the LIF.

    • You can specify an IP address with the -address and -netmask options, not with the -subnet option.

    • When you assign IP addresses, you may need to configure a default route to a gateway if there are clients or domain controllers on a different IP subnet. Learn more about network route create and creating a static route within an SVM in the ONTAP command reference.

    • -service-policy - the service policy for the LIF. If no policy is specified, a default policy will be assigned automatically. Use the network interface service-policy show command to review available service policies.

    • -auto-revert - specify whether a data LIF is automatically reverted to its home node under circumstances such as startup, changes to the status of the management database, or when the network connection is made. The default setting is false, but you can set it to true depending on network management policies in your environment.

      Repeat this step for every LIF in the trunking group.

      The following command creates lif-A for the SVM vs1, on port e0c of the node cluster1_01:

      network interface create -vserver vs1 -lif lif-A -service-policy default-intercluster -home-node cluster1_01 -home-port e0c -address 192.0.2.0

      Learn more about LIF creation.

  4. Verify the LIFs were created:

    network interface show

  5. Verify the configured IP address is reachable:

    To verify an…​ Use…​

    IPv4 address

    network ping

    IPv6 address

    network ping6
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