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vpert
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Moving Cisco Nexus VSM to VEM

Hi there,

when I try to move the Cisco Nexus VSM to the VEM the connection gets lost and never comes back up again.

We configured the uplink port profile as mentioned in the Cisco Document "Installing the Cisco Nexus 1000V Software". Then we added three more port profile for the Control, Management and Packet VLAN's. But as soon we switch the NIC1 (Control) of the VSM the connection to the VEM get's lost and the VEM never shows up again.

Well - we missed to add the system vlan's to the uplink port profile and the port profiles for the Control and the Packet network of the Cisco 1000V.

Make a long story short - the VSM can now be connected and also has the VEM attached. But we constently receive messages "KERN-1-SYSTEM_MSG: Dropping received frames from duplicate VSM - kernel" as soon as we add a second physical NIC to the uplink port group.

Anyone a tip what the problem could be?

thx

Tom

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lwatta
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Tom,

I was able to reproduce what you are seeing. The issue is that just adding another NIC to the uplink without having the uplink configured for some kind of switch teaming causes issues. Since the N1KV is essentially a switch it expects all NIC teaming to be either a port-channel or vPC-HM (virtual port-channel host mode). This needs to be defined in the uplink port-profile. When you attach a second NIC without having the proper switch config you can get duplicate broadcast packets and a host of other issues. Thats why the VSM is complaining.

I don't know a lot about the 3010. If it won't support a port-channel then vPC-HM is the way to go. vPC-HM will create a virtual port-channel between NICs on two different switches without having to make any changes on the physical switches. As long as the switches support CDP and the ports are configured the same it should work.

louis

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lwatta
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Tom,

Are you using some form of port-channel on the uplink port-profile or did you just add a second nic to the uplink?

louis

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vpert
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Hi Louis,

no channeling. The ESX is running on a HP BL460c and connected to 8 Cisco 3010 Interconnect Switches. So therefor we can not use channeling ;-(

We configured the uplink port profile as follows:

port-profile uplink-system

switchport mode trunk

switchport trunk allowed vlan 967-970,974,976,978

no shut

vmware port-group

system vlan 974,976

capability uplink

state enabled

and the port profiles for the VSM:

port-profile ctrl_n1kv_974

switchport access vlan 974

switchport mode access

vmware port-group

no shut

system vlan 974

state enabled

port-profile pckt_n1kv_976

switchport access vlan 976

switchport mode access

vmware port-group

no shut

system vlan 976

state enabled

port-profile mgmt_n1kv_978

switchport access vlan 978

switchport mode access

vmware port-group

no shut

state enabled

After that we added one phy. NIC to the uplink-system port group and moved the VSM on to the above configured port groups . Everything ok.

Then we added a second phy. NIC to the uplink-system port group and this is generating the mentioned error message.

thx for our help on this

Tom

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lwatta
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Tom,

I was able to reproduce what you are seeing. The issue is that just adding another NIC to the uplink without having the uplink configured for some kind of switch teaming causes issues. Since the N1KV is essentially a switch it expects all NIC teaming to be either a port-channel or vPC-HM (virtual port-channel host mode). This needs to be defined in the uplink port-profile. When you attach a second NIC without having the proper switch config you can get duplicate broadcast packets and a host of other issues. Thats why the VSM is complaining.

I don't know a lot about the 3010. If it won't support a port-channel then vPC-HM is the way to go. vPC-HM will create a virtual port-channel between NICs on two different switches without having to make any changes on the physical switches. As long as the switches support CDP and the ports are configured the same it should work.

louis

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vpert
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Hi Louis,

thanks once again - your tip was just right!

We configured a channel group for all the uplink port profil and the error message was cleared.

interface Ethernet3/1

inherit port-profile uplink-system

channel-group 1 force mode on

sub-group-id 0

no shutdown

interface Ethernet3/7

inherit port-profile uplink-system

channel-group 1 force mode on

sub-group-id 1

no shutdown

interface port-channel1

inherit port-profile uplink-system

description uplink-system

sub-group cdp

regards

Tom

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