Request for help! NetApp gurus, please chime in!

Haven’t used my blog for this purpose before, but figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot!

I’m not going to have an opportunity to test this until next week, so I’m hoping to get some feedback about whether or not I’m attempting the impossible. I’m trying to see if I can multiple sub-interfaces on a NetApp VIF all in the same subnet and with the same IP address. This is for a lab environment where each VLAN represents an isolated lab, but I want all of the labs to be able to connect to the same NetApp device using the same IP address so as to simplify addressing, etc.

This diagram describes basically what I’m trying to accomplish. Can anyone confirm if this will or will not work?

6 thoughts on “Request for help! NetApp gurus, please chime in!”

  1. This won’t work unless vfilers and so-called “ipspaces” used.
    Without ipspaces your netapp’s routing lookups go mad (or simly won’t work). May be this will work if “fastpath” enabled (if “options ip.fastpath.enabled” set to “on” then system do not use routing table and just responds on interface it received the packet), give it a try.

    So, it is definitely possible using vfilers and ipspaces because each IPspace have separate routing table, but kind a pain in configuration if you had no previous experience and in fact you will have several filers. See “VFiler Administration Guide” for your ONTAP version for config details.

    New NetApp System Manager 2.x simplifies vfiler creation.

  2. There was an undocumented way to do this in the 7.X days. You had to edit a file on the filer from the command line. It was the only way “back in te day”. Scott Lowe taught me how to do it but I’m sorry that I can’t remember the file off the top of my head.

    You just assigned two ips and vlans to an interface & you couldn’t in FilerView.

    Maybe Scott has blogged about it or could tell you the file name

  3. Aaron’s Comment won’t help really. You can edit the /etc/hosts and /etc/rc from the CLI side but without vFilers and separated ipspaces you won’t be able to accomplish having the same IP multiple times on the same interface (as Albert stated).

    However vFiler and Multistores is what Cisco and NetApp are getting at with their FlexPod: secure multi-tenancy! You can actually build x times the same looking filer on the same actual filer and none will be compromised by each other.

    So it’s worth looking into vFiler and Multistores for your attempt…however, you will need iSCSI boot for that…so far! 🙂

    Cheers,
    Frank

    1. I ended up not being able to use the same IP, but was able to use the same IP space (albeit with a warning when I upgraded to 8.0). I didn’t want vFilers, as the real goal was to administer the same filer (physical or ‘v’, doesn’t matter) from different VLANs, using the same IP space – corner case, I know. 🙂

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