Setup Networks

In ovirt-engine the Setup Networks feature enables easy management of the host’s network configuration, either by using the cool drag & drop dialogue from the web administrator portal  (see image below) or via the rest-api (by rest client or by using the SDK).

The image shows the ‘setup networks’ dialogue, followed by a quick legend: 

1. Interfaces – the physical interfaces as reported by the host from the latest host configuration sampling. Currently refreshing the network configuration is done either by activating the host (when host is on ‘maintenance’ or on ‘non operational’ state) or by executing ‘setup networks’ action. The interfaces might represent a plan interface or a bond. For bond there is an option to set the bonding options (by clicking the pencil icon next to the bond name).
2. Assigned Logical Networks – The logical networks which are assigned to the interfaces. There are several types of assigned networks which will be reviewed in a latter posts: managed (synced or not-synced) and unmanaged. The definition of the network for managed networks is taken from the Logical Network on data-center level. Network’s boot protocol can be edited by clicking the pencil icon next to the network name. For the management network the option to provide the default gateway is enabled.
3. Unassigned Logical Networks – A list of the available networks which aren’t assigned to any interface:
   1. Required – The networks that required to exist on the host so it can be claimed as operational.
   2. Non Required – The networks that could be defined on the host, but their absence will not affect the host’s status.
4. Connectivity Check – performs connectivity check between the engine to the host during to the setup network execution. This indicates the VDSM agent on the host whether to revert the host’s network configuration to the last stable in case of communication failure from the engine.
5. Save Network Configuration – stores the network configuration that was applied on the host, so upon VDSM service restart or upon reboot, the network configuration is persisted. Also in case of failed setup network command, VDSM will revert to this (latest saved) configuration.

In a future posts I’ll describe the ‘sync network’ feature which is an enhancement to the setup network.