You can configure networking in the following ways:

The Grid Network is mandatory and can manage all grid traffic. The Admin and Client Networks can be included at the time of installation or added later to adapt to changes in requirements. Although the Admin Network and Client Network are optional, when you use these networks to handle administrative and client traffic, the Grid Network can be made isolated and secure.

Internal ports are only accessible over the Grid Network. External ports are accessible from all network types. This flexibility provides multiple options for designing a StorageGRID deployment and setting up external IP and port filtering in switches and firewalls. See internal grid node communications and external communications.

StorageGRID nodes are connected to each network using the following specific interfaces:

For details about mapping virtual or physical ports to node network interfaces, see the installation instructions:

The Grid Network is required. It is used for all internal StorageGRID traffic. The Grid Network provides connectivity among all nodes in the grid, across all sites and subnets. All nodes on the Grid Network must be able to communicate with all other nodes. The Grid Network can consist of multiple subnets. Networks containing critical grid services, such as NTP, can also be added as grid subnets.

The Grid Network can be used for all admin traffic and all client traffic, even if the Admin Network and Client Network are configured. The Grid Network gateway is the node default gateway unless the node has the Client Network configured.

Note the following requirements and details for the Grid Network gateway:

The Admin Network is optional. When configured, it can be used for system administration and maintenance traffic. The Admin Network is typically a private network and does not need to be routable between nodes.

You can choose which grid nodes should have the Admin Network enabled on them.

When you use the Admin Network, administrative and maintenance traffic does not need to travel across the Grid Network. Typical uses of the Admin Network include the following:

The Admin Network is never used for internal grid traffic. An Admin Network gateway is provided and allows the Admin Network to communicate with multiple external subnets. However, the Admin Network gateway is never used as the node default gateway.

Note the following requirements and details for the Admin Network gateway:

The Client Network is optional. When configured, it is used to provide access to grid services for client applications such as S3 and Swift. If you plan to make StorageGRID data accessible to an external resource (for example, a Cloud Storage Pool or the StorageGRID CloudMirror replication service), the external resource can also use the Client Network. Grid nodes can communicate with any subnet reachable through the Client Network gateway.

You can choose which grid nodes should have the Client Network enabled on them. All nodes don't have to be on the same Client Network, and nodes will never communicate with each other over the Client Network. The Client Network does not become operational until grid installation is complete.

For added security, you can specify that a node's Client Network interface be untrusted so that the Client Network will be more restrictive of which connections are allowed. If a node's Client Network interface is untrusted, the interface accepts outbound connections such as those used by CloudMirror replication, but only accepts inbound connections on ports that have been explicitly configured as load balancer endpoints. See Manage firewall controls and Configure load balancer endpoints.

When you use a Client Network, client traffic does not need to travel across the Grid Network. Grid Network traffic can be separated onto a secure, non-routable network. The following node types are often configured with a Client Network:

Note the following for the Client Network gateway:

As required, you can optionally use virtual LAN (VLAN) networks for client traffic and for some types of admin traffic. Grid traffic, however, can't use a VLAN interface. The internal StorageGRID traffic between nodes must always use the Grid Network on eth0.

To support the use VLANs, you must configure one or more interfaces on a node as trunk interfaces at the switch. You can configure the Grid Network interface (eth0) or the Client Network interface (eth2) to be a trunk, or you can add trunk interfaces to the node.

If eth0 is configured as a trunk, Grid Network traffic flows over the trunk native interface, as configured on the switch. Similarly, if eth2 is configured as a trunk, and the Client Network is also configured on the same node, the Client Network uses the trunk port's native VLAN as configured on the switch.

Only inbound admin traffic, such as used for SSH, Grid Manager, or Tenant Manager traffic, is supported over VLAN networks. Outbound traffic, such as used for NTP, DNS, LDAP, KMS, and Cloud Storage Pools, is not supported over VLAN networks.

See Configure VLAN interfaces for instructions and guidelines.

VLAN interfaces are only used in HA groups and are assigned VIP addresses on the active node. See Manage high availability groups for instructions and guidelines.