Solved VLAN Config Fails: No Carrier

jasonvp

jasonvp

Hey folks -

I'm having some "fun" with my router, which has a dual Intel 10GigE card in it. I have this same card in two other FreeBSD boxes, and one of them even has VLANs configured. But for some oddball reason, I simply can't get it working on this router. And I know the switch supports VLAN trunking, as the other servers are also connected to it (including the one with VLANs).

Once I have the switch port reconfigured to trunk VLANs 100 and 200, I've tried on the router:
ifconfig ix0.100 create vlan 100 vlandev ix0 inet 192.168.100.254/24
ifconfig ix0.200 create vlan 200 vlandev ix0 inet 192.168.200.254/24

No errors when those commands are executed. The link on ix0 stays up, the interfaces appear to come up, but I can't get anything to ping through them. At all. Nothing. Nothing on VLAN 100, nor 200. OK, that's odd. I add these lines to rc.conf:

Code: 
vlans_ix0="100 200"
ifconfig_ix0_100="inet 192.168.100.254/24"
ifconfig_ix0_200="inet 192.168.200.254/24"

And try to reboot the router. The moment it starts processing those lines, it kills the Ethernet interface's link. And when I finally get a CLI, the parent and two VLAN interfaces show up as "No Carrier". No amount of "ifconfig up" or restarting or anything will stop that.

I'm getting zilch for useful logging, otherwise I'd share it. I'm sure this is something silly, but I can't figure it out. Any guidance?

Thanks.
 
Add ifconfig_ix0="up". The interface itself is unconfigured and therefor administratively down.
 
SirDice said:
How is the switch port configured?
Click to expand...

Code: 
switchport mode trunk
switchport trunk allowed vlan 100,200

That's when I'm trying to use trunks, of course. When I discovered the trunking wasn't working last night, I kicked it back to an access port for a single VLAN. I'm positive it's not the switch port; in fact I know for a fact it isn't. It's the FreeBSD configuration.
 
Make sure to set it to dot1q, it may have defaulted to Cisco's proprietary protocol.
 
SirDice said:
Make sure to set it to dot1q, it may have defaulted to Cisco's proprietary protocol.
Click to expand...

It is. It's configured identically to the other trunked ports that work on the switch, and with other FreeBSD servers.

Please help me focus on the FreeBSD side of the house. :-) (I'm a network engineer by trade, the Cisco is fine.)
 
There's nothing wrong with the FreeBSD side of the configuration.
 
SirDice said:
There's nothing wrong with the FreeBSD side of the configuration.
Click to expand...

Well there clearly is. Or there's something else that's wrong with the FreeBSD system. The switch port's link goes out the moment the "vlan" line is hit in the router's /etc/rc.conf. And nothing I can do on the router while it's running that will bring the port back up.
 
spanning tree is a must and it's your best friend in a big network. It's the only way to protect you from some "geek" that make a loop somewhere on the access switch.
anyway what the log on the switch tells you, what is the reason for the interface to go down?
 
VladiBG said:
spanning tree is a must and it's your best friend in a big network. It's the only way to protect you from some "geek" that make a loop somewhere on the access switch.
Click to expand...

Again: I understand that. And I refuse to run it. In "big networks" I don't run switches with L2 spanning on them at all. They're all L3 ports running VXLAN. But that's not what I'm doing here at home.

anyway what the log on the switch tells you, what is the reason for the interface to go down?
Click to expand...

Nope. It just sees the port come up when the machine first powers on, and then goes down as soon as FreeBSD processes the rc.conf.
 
did you try to setup the interface without vlan config as normal access port to check if it's working to ping the switch for example and after that to switch back to trunk and add only one of the VLANs let's say VLAN100 for the test.
 
VladiBG said:
did you try to setup the interface without vlan config as normal access port to check if it's working to ping the switch for example and after that to switch back to trunk and add only one of the VLANs let's say VLAN100 for the test.
Click to expand...

It's been running fine as an access port since installing a month ago. I've just now tried to get the VLAN config working with the router and it's not working. So, yes, as an access, it's all good. I haven't tried trunking a single VLAN and can't at the moment. It's back "in production" if you will while I work from home for the day. Maybe after my work day.

I'm pretty flustered with this, I have to say. This should "just work", but it clearly has other things in mind.
 
VladiBG said:
Maybe read this:

235918 – ixgbe(4): 'No carrier' on ix0 with more than 1 VLAN (ixgbe_driver_version[] = "4.0.1-k")

bugs.freebsd.org bugs.freebsd.org
Click to expand...

Good find. It didn't help exactly because I did try to install the driver from Intel. No love. But it prompted me during my lunch break to completely upgrade the router to 12.1p2. THAT seems to have done the dirty. I have the link up now with both VLANs, and the router is routing the way it should.

So I guess 12.0 is problematic in that regard. Annoying.

Thanks for the find.
 
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