HP Integrity Virtual Machines 4.3: Installation, Configuration, Administration

NOTE: Trunking software such as APA is supported only on the VM Host, not on the
guest.
APA can be configured on the VM Host to provide a highly available LAN for the vswitch
(APA in active/passive mode) or to increase the bandwidth of the vswitch LAN (APA
active/active mode). Before you stop APA, use the hpvmnet -h command to halt the vswitch.
If you do not halt the vswitch first, the hpvmnet command reports an incorrect MAC address
for the vswitch.
• Guest virtual network interface card (vNIC) — the virtual network adapter, as recognized
by the guest operating system.
• Virtual switch (vswitch) — the virtual network switch maintained by the VM Host that is
associated with a pNIC and can be allocated to one or more guests.
Vswitches must not be connected to network devices that are set to promiscuous mode. Do
not run applications like tcpdump on the VM Host on interfaces that are used for virtual
switches.
Using redundant pNICs and APA, you can ensure high availability of the guest networks and
provide greater capacity for the VM Host system running many guests with network-intensive
applications.
You can configure HP-UX VLANs for the guests. VLANs isolates broadcast and multicast traffic
by determining which targets should receive that traffic, thereby making better use of switch
and end-station resources. With VLANs, broadcasts and multicasts go only to the intended nodes
in the VLAN.
7.2 Creating and Managing vswitches
The following sections describe how to create, modify, delete, and manage vswitches.
7.2.1 Creating vswitches
To allow guests to access network devices, you must create vswitches on the VM Host. This
section describes how to create a vswitch and verify that it has started.
To create vswitches, use the hpvmnet command. The following is the basic format of the hpvmnet
command to create a vswitch:
hpvmnet -c -S vswitch-name -n nic-id
This command format includes the following options:
• -c indicates the creation of a vswitch.
• -S vswitch-name specifies the name of the vswitch.
• -n nic-id specifies the network interface on the VM Host that the new vswitch will use.
For example, —n 0 indicates lan0. Network interfaces are displayed by the lanscan
command. If you do not include the -n option, a local vswitch is created, as described in
Section 7.2.1.1 (page 127).
The hpvmnet command also allows you to display and manage the vswitches on the VM Host.
Table 7-1 describes the options to the hpvmnet command.
Table 7-1 Options to the hpvmnet Command
DescriptionOption
Boots a vswitch. The vswitch must be booted before it can
accept network traffic. All vswitches are booted
automatically when Integrity VM is started.
-b
Creates a new vswitch.
-c
124 Creating Virtual Networks