# Teaming & VLANs for Novell NetWare*

- Overview

- VLAN (Virtual LAN)

- General Configuration Notes

- Teaming Requirements

- Command Lines

- Memory Configuration Requirements

- VLAN Command Lines

- Usage Notes

- Removing a Team

- Troubleshooting

## Overview

Driver name: iANS.LAN Location on CD-ROM: \NWSERVER

iANS.LAN is the Intel software for NetWare 4.11 and higher that provides a variety of advanced networking services (ANS). These benefits include the teaming and VLAN based features.

Teaming includes:

- Adapter Fault Tolerance (AFT)

- Adaptive Load Balancing (ALB)

- Port Aggregation, also known as Link Aggregation (static IEEE 802.3ad), Cisco Fast EtherChannel* (FEC) or Gigabit EtherChannel* (GEC)

- VLAN (Virtual LAN) support of IEEE 802.1Q.

See the Teaming Options page for complete description of these modes.

See the Examples File for detailed instructions on configuring teaming in NetWare.

## VLAN (Virtual LAN)

See the VLAN page for complete description of VLANs.

See the Examples File for detailed instructions on configuring VLANs in NetWare.

## General Configuration Notes

- There is a limit of 64 VLANs per NetWare server.

- Even if you have a single adapter set up for VLANs, it is still called a team, or "virtual adapter."

- Always bind iANS to the base driver, and the protocol(s) to iANS.

## Teaming Requirements

- Teaming features work only with Intel Server Adapters.

- All adapters in a team must use the same frame types.

- All adapters must be connected to a switch with matching capabilities, and the switch has been set to match the settings which you enable on your adapters.

- Link all adapters of a team to the same switch using the same speed and duplex; otherwise, performance is greatly degraded.

- When using iANS.LAN, do NOT bind the network protocols (IPX, IP, etc) directly to the base driver of an adapter used with iANS. Instead, bind iANS to the base driver and the protocol(s) to iANS. Doing otherwise can cause routing error messages, but most likely the protocols bound directly to the base drivers will simply not work.

- Do not use INSTALL.NLM or NWCONFIG.NLM to configure iANS.LAN. You may use it to install the module (done automatically if the utility is used to install CE1000), but do not use it to set the configuration. Alternatively, you can manually copy the iANS driver to sys:\system. To configure to run automatically, set up a configuration NCF file which can be called from AUTOEXEC.NCF.

### Server Adapters Supporting Teaming:

Some advanced features are also adapter dependent as the table below depicts.

Adapter | VLAN (IEEE 802.1Q) | Teaming Mode
AFT* | ALB* | FEC* | GEC* | AD*
Intel PRO/100+ Server Adapter | x | x | x | x |  | x
Intel PRO/100S and PRO/100+ Dual Port Server Adapters | x | x | x | x |  | x
Intel PRO/100 and PRO/100S Server Adapters | x | x | x | x |  | x
Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit Server Adapter | x | x | x |  | x | x
Intel PRO/1000 F Server Adapter | x | x | x |  | x | x
Intel PRO/1000 T Server Adapter | x | x | x | x | x | x
Intel PRO/1000 XT Server Adapter | x | x | x | x | x | x
Intel PRO/1000 XF Server Adapter | x | x | x |  | x | x
Intel PRO/1000 MF Server Adapter | x | x | x |  | x | x
Intel PRO/1000 MT Server Adapter | x | x | x | x | x | x
Intel PRO/1000 MT Dual Port Server Adapter | x | x | x | x | x | x
Intel PRO/1000 MF Dual Port Server Adapter | x | x | x |  | x | x

*AFT - Adapter Fault Tolerance
*ALB - Adaptive Load Balancing
*FEC - Fast EtherChannel (*used here to include Intel Link Aggregation and static 802.3ad)
*GEC - Gigabit EtherChannel (*used here to include Intel Link Aggregation and static 802.3ad)
*AD - IEEE 802.3ad teaming mode.

| NOTES: Copper gigabit adapters may be teamed with Intel PRO/100 adapters at 10 or 100 Mbps or with adapters from other vendors.
| In NetWare, only server adapters may be part of an VLAN or team.

The ANS driver (required for all ANS features) for Intel PRO/100 as well as PRO/1000 adapters is located at \NWSERVER\iANS.LAN.

### Multi-Vendor Teaming

Multi-vendor teaming (MVT) is supported on NetWare 4.11 through 6 systems.

- FEC/GEC and 802.3ad modes support all frame types, and IPX may also be used.

- AFT and ALB modes using the Ethernet_II frametype and IP protocol may include other vendors’ adapters in the multi-vendor team.

Only some vendors support LAN drivers that register NESL events. These drivers are required for MVT support.

MVT only supports mixed speed adapters in AFT and ALB modes. MVT Load Balancing is provided at layer 3 for TCP, UDP (including multicast), and IP/Snap protocols.

Hot Plug is not supported for members of a multi-vendor team. Hot Add and Remove of non-Intel adapters may be done in FEC/GEC and 802.3ad modes only.

| NOTE: If a failover occurs or if the primary adapter is changed, the MAC address changes. Clients are notified by an ARP broadcast. When any team member receives an ARP request, the ANS software responds only with the MAC address for the current primary adapter.

## Command Lines

Basic Structure:

1. LOAD base driver (e.g. CE100.LAN or CE1000.LAN) with appropriate parameters, including frame size.

2. LOAD iANS driver with appropriate parameters, including frame size.

   - For a VLAN you would include a VLAN ID number.

   - For a VLAN or multiple frame type configuration, include a name.

   - For a multiple team setup include a team number.

3. BIND iANS driver to the adapter name.

   - If creating multiple teams, include the team number here to define which team uses which adapter(s).

   - If you want to specify which adapter is to be primary or secondary, list on this line.

4. Create the team: LOAD iANS COMMIT <mode>.

   - <mode> distinguishes which advanced services to enable (AFT, ALB, FEC, GEC, AD).

   - If creating multiple teams, include the team number.

5. BIND the protocol to the iANS driver using the name that was assigned when iANS was loaded.

If you are using only one frame type, a single team and no VLAN, you can bind the protocol directly to the iANS driver without using an assigned name. Include a net=n number, especially in a script since the system requests the number if not given.

Example of Mixed Speed Fault Tolerance Team:

> Load CE100b name=100Meg
> Load CE1000 name=Gigabit
> Load iANS
> Bind iANS Gigabit Primary
> Bind iANS 100Meg
> Load iANS COMMIT MODE = AFT
> Bind IPX iANS Net=2
> Bind <Protocol> iANS <Address>

For more examples of specific load commands for AFT, ALB or FEC see the adapter teaming Examples page.

## Memory Configuration Requirements

Allocating Memory:

When using teams or multiple VLANs, the server's default packet buffers probably need to be increased. To do this, add the following lines to the STARTUP.NCF file which is located in the same directory that NetWare is launched from. Usually C:\NWSERVER\STARTUP.NCF.

> SET MINIMUM PACKET RECEIVE BUFFERS = 500 (or higher)
> SET MAXIMUM PACKET RECEIVE BUFFERS = 2000 (or higher)

"SET MINIMUM PACKET" designates the minimum number of packet receive buffers the system shall allocate, and "SET MAXIMUM PACKET" designates the maximum. Make sure that the maximum setting is equal to or greater than the minimum setting. The number of buffers required is based on the number of VLANs and which teaming features are in use.

For every virtual adapter, team or VLAN used, iANS requests 64 buffers. When in Adaptive Load Balancing modes (ALB, FEC/GEC and Link Aggregation - static IEEE 802.3ad), 64 buffers are needed for each adapter in the team. The non-load balancing Adapter Fault Tolerance (AFT) mode only requires 64 buffers for the team.

As an example, an ALB team of two adapters that uses 12 VLANs would require 64 [buffers] * 2 [adapters] * 12 [VLANs] = 1536 for the minimum packet receive buffers. This number is in addition to any other buffers that the server may require for other purposes, including other adapters.

The default amount of memory used by each NetWare receive buffer is approximately 4K (varies slightly with different versions). If the extra memory requirement is a problem, the following configurations may help to reduce the impact.

- If Ethernet is the only network topology that the server uses, the size of the buffer can be reduced to 2000 bytes (the maximum Ethernet frame size plus some out of band data used by iANS) without impacting the performance of the server. This is done by adding the following line to the STARTUP.NCF file:

> > SET MAXIMUM PHYSICAL RECEIVE PACKET SIZE = 2000

| NOTE: This does not work if Ethernet Jumbo Frames are in use. In fact, the packet size must be increased to accommodate the jumbo frames.

- A keyword is included for iANS that allows the administrator to reduce the buffer requirement per VLAN from 64 down to as low as 32; however, this negatively impacts the server's performance. The syntax is:

> > LOAD IANS TX_ECBS_TO_USE = X where "X" is the number of buffers to use for each VLAN.

## VLAN Notes

Example for a Single 802.1Q VLAN Team:

> Load ce100b slot=5 frame=ethernet_802.3 name=e83
> Load ians vlanid=2 frame=ethernet_802.3 name=T1-VL2 team=1
> Load ians vlanid=3 frame=ethernet_802.3 name=T1-VL3 team=1
> Bind ians e83 team=1
> Load ians commit mode=AFT team=1
> Bind ipx T1-VL2 net=2
> Bind ipx T1-VL3 net=3

See the Examples page for several examples of configuring teams and VLANs.

In order to function properly, the adapters configured for IEEE VLAN must be connected to a "tagged" port (called a trunk port by Cisco) on an 802.1Q-capable switch.

## Usage Notes

1. Gigabit adapters - Intel copper-based gigabit server adapters (e.g., PRO/1000 T, PRO/1000 XT) may be teamed with Intel PRO/100 server adapters for AFT, ALB, and FEC modes. All adapters must be configured for the same speed and duplex.

2. Required Settings in STARTUP.NCF:
   SET MINIMUM PACKET RECEIVE BUFFERS = 500 (or larger)
   SET MAXIMUM PACKET RECEIVE BUFFERS = 2000 (or larger)
   See "Allocating Memory for VLANS" in Memory Configuration Requirements for more information.

3. If you receive the ERROR MESSAGE (at commit): "Failed to create new team," check the following:

   1. All adapters have loaded drivers and have the same frame types loaded.

   2. iANS is loaded once for each VLAN and frame type.

   3. All adapters are connected to the same switch.

   4. iANS is not being bound to an unsupported adapter.

   5. An "iANS BIND" command has been issued for each adapter and frame type in the team.

   | NOTE: Novell's CONFIG command does not reflect the iANS BIND statements until after the COMMIT has been successfully issued.

4. Display the current status for all adapters in a iANS team. Example:
   LOAD iANS STATUS team=n (where n=team number)

5. Create the primary adapter. Example:
   BIND iANS CE100B_1_E82 PRIMARY
   This can only be done with the BIND command.

6. The default amount of memory used by each NetWare receive buffer is approximately 4K (varies slightly with different versions). If the extra memory requirement for VLAN is a problem, there are several things that can be done to reduce the impact:

   1. If Ethernet is the only network topology that the server uses, and you are not using "jumbo frames", add (to STARTUP.ncf):
      SET MAXIMUM PHYSICAL RECEIVE PACKET SIZE = 2000

   2. Use the iANS keyword TX_ECBS_TO_USE to reduce the buffers per VLAN from 64 down to as low as 32. This will negatively impact performance (while reducing system resources required). Example:
      LOAD IANS TX_ECBS_TO_USE = n (number of buffers for each VLAN)
      See "Allocating Memory for VLANS" in Memory Configuration Requirements for more information.

7. When using iANS with SMP mode enabled, do not use the Stop Processors command after loading iANS.LAN. The Novell OS does not currently have a mechanism for informing the intermediate driver of a change in the number of active processors, and this could lead to a server abend if iANS attempts to use a deactivated processor.

8. Due to some potentially severe problems in registering our driver with NEB.NLM, a PCI Hot Plug capable server must have iANS.LAN loaded before the hot plug modules get loaded. To do this, make sure the iANS.LAN load lines precede the NCMCON.NLM load lines in the AUTOEXEC.NCF.

9. When a multiple adapter team is created (other than AFT), it uses all the functionality of the least capable adapter in the team. In order to add an adapter to an existing team it must have the same base functionality enabled as that adapter of the lowest common feature set in the team.

10. ANS probes are turned off by default when only Ethernet_802.2 and/or Ethernet_802.3 frame types are in use. This is due to the fact that Ethernet_802.2 and Ethernet_802.3 frame types may not allow ANS probes to be sent correctly and may cause one or more adapters to failover unnecessarily. If you intend to use the probe feature of ANS, Intel recommends that you load the frame types Ethernet_II or Ethernet_Snap. (You do not need to bind any protocols to these frame types.)

11. In NetWare, the following message may be displayed: "IPX received an incomplete packet from network 00001011:00A0C9AADFC3. 85 incomplete packets received." This message occurs when NetWare's internal routing mechanism mistakes the Intel iANS driver's probe packets for NetWare RIP packets. To prevent this message from displaying, make sure that IPXRTR.NLM is loaded on every NetWare server on the LAN. For more information on IPXRTR, see Novell's documentation or their Support web site: http://support.novell.com.

## Removing a Team

To remove a team, unload iANS.LAN by typing "UNLOAD IANS" at the console. Remember to comment out any lines you added to autoexec.ncf or a batch file if you do not want them to reload when you restart the server.

## Troubleshooting

When IANS.LAN forms a team, it may report the following error message:

Primary adapter does not sense any probes. Possible reason, partitioned team

In addition, if VLANs are enabled at the switch, the adapter will continuously fail over while there is no traffic on the network. This has been observed when connected with an Extreme Summit2 and Summit4.2 switch.

This failover does not affect performance. But the error message can be turned off with the command PROBES = OFF.

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