Smarts IP: GLBP interface is causing duplicate alarms in Smarts IP; Does Smarts IP support the Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP)?
search cancel

Smarts IP: GLBP interface is causing duplicate alarms in Smarts IP; Does Smarts IP support the Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP)?

book

Article ID: 315831

calendar_today

Updated On:

Products

VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:


Does Smarts support the Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP)?

GLBP interface is causing duplicate alarms in Smarts IP

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Cause

GLBP is not currently supported in Smarts as there is no GLBP MIB.

The IP address that is getting configured via the GLBP (Gateway Load Balancing Protocol) will be part of the IP address table on each device (specifically host) that takes part in this configuration.
To the outside world, these IPs are floating Ips and will be active on a particular host. If the host is DOWN, the IP move to the other active host thus technically this floating IP will be part of each device host access points.

Ideally when these 2 hosts are getting discovered in SMARTS, this floating IP will be distinguished as duplicate IP which is the primary concern for the customer

Resolution

The primary method recommended to resolve the issue is to Use the IP Tagging Method to deal with Duplicate IP addresses.

The IP tagging feature is described in the VMware Smart Assurance IP Manager Concepts Guide and the VMware Smart Assurance IP Manager User Guide. Instructions for enabling the IP tagging feature are given in “Enabling overlapping IP address discovery in the IP Manager User Guide.

If you require more assistance with regard to GLBP interfaces in your environment, contact your VMware Account Manager and request a Professional Services consult and reference this solution ID.


Workaround:
Customers can utilize the 'ic-autoIPTagging.asl”.that is in the IP/Smarts/rules/utils folder 

A new utility (via asl script) has been introduced, file name : ic-autoIPTagging.asl  present under IP/smart/rules/utils directory that runs through all the duplicateIP present in the topology and creates appropriate tag groups based on the device name that it is duplicatedBy.
 
Note: This is mainly useful for tagging purpose where RD (route distinguisher) is not 
populated. 

Using sm_edit from the smarts/bin directory on the base file you can edit the file and save it and it will save to the local/rules/utils/ic-autoIPTagging

Note: Before running the utility, please take a backup of the RPS file (in case if 
tagging needs to be redone).

To run the utility, execute the following command:
./sm_adapter -s <server_name> -b <broker_port> ../local/rules/utils/ic_autoIPTagging.asl

Also, the tool is a framework for automating the manual IP tagging, and hence this 
tool can be customized as per user requirement.

Please Note: the use of this script and the results are not supported by VMware Technical Support, as this is considered customization and each environment may have different requirements with regards to the desired outcome for IPtagging.  Recommended that customers test in their DEV or UAT environments before running in Production.