vxlan: virtual extensible lan

Virtual eXtensible Local Area Networking documentation

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The VXLAN protocol is a tunnelling protocol that is designed to

solve the problem of limited number of available VLAN's (4096).

With VXLAN identifier is expanded to 24 bits.

It is a draft RFC standard, that is implemented by Cisco Nexus,

Vmware and Brocade. The protocol runs over UDP using a single

destination port (still not standardized by IANA).

This document describes the Linux kernel tunnel device,

there is also an implantation of VXLAN for Openvswitch.

Unlike most tunnels, a VXLAN is a 1 to N network, not just point

to point. A VXLAN device can either dynamically learn the IP address

of the other end, in a manner similar to a learning bridge, or the

forwarding entries can be configured statically.

The management of vxlan is done in a similar fashion to it's

too closest neighbors GRE and VLAN. Configuring VXLAN requires

the version of iproute2 that matches the kernel release

where VXLAN was first merged upstream.

1. Create vxlan device

  # ip li add vxlan0 type vxlan id 42 group 239.1.1.1 dev eth1

This creates a new device (vxlan0). The device uses the

the multicast group 239.1.1.1 over eth1 to handle packets where

no entry is in the forwarding table.

2. Delete vxlan device

  # ip link delete vxlan0

3. Show vxlan info

  # ip -d show vxlan0

It is possible to create, destroy and display the vxlan

forwarding table using the new bridge command.

1. Create forwarding table entry

  # bridge fdb add to 00:17:42:8a:b4:05 dst 192.19.0.2 dev vxlan0

2. Delete forwarding table entry

  # bridge fdb delete 00:17:42:8a:b4:05

3. Show forwarding table

  # bridge fdb show dev vxlan0

	  To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the module

	  will be called macvtap.

config VXLAN

       tristate "Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN)"

       depends on EXPERIMENTAL

       ---help---

	  This allows one to create vxlan virtual interfaces that provide

	  Layer 2 Networks over Layer 3 Networks. VXLAN is often used

	  to tunnel virtual network infrastructure in virtualized environments.

	  For more information see:

	    http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-mahalingam-dutt-dcops-vxlan-02

	  To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the module

	  will be called vxlan.

config NETCONSOLE

	tristate "Network console logging support"

	---help---

obj-$(CONFIG_TUN) += tun.o

obj-$(CONFIG_VETH) += veth.o

obj-$(CONFIG_VIRTIO_NET) += virtio_net.o

obj-$(CONFIG_VXLAN) += vxlan.o

#

# Networking Drivers