AIX - NIC device explanation need


 
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# 1  
Old 05-15-2019
AIX - NIC device explanation need

Hello,

I have some doubt about the NIC device on my AIX box.
When using lsdev command
Code:
[root@xxx] / > lsdev -Cc adapter | grep en
ent0 Available 03-00 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent1 Available 03-01 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent2 Available 04-00 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent3 Available 04-01 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent4 Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent5 Available       EtherChannel / IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation
ent6 Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)

If I check the physical location of NICs
Code:
[root@xxx] / > lsdev -C -H -F "name status physloc location description" | grep en
en0          Defined                                                                  03-00       Standard Ethernet Network Interface
en1          Defined                                                                  03-01       Standard Ethernet Network Interface
en2          Defined                                                                  04-00       Standard Ethernet Network Interface
en3          Defined                                                                  04-01       Standard Ethernet Network Interface
en4          Available                                                                            Standard Ethernet Network Interface
en5          Available                                                                            Standard Ethernet Network Interface
en6          Available                                                                            Standard Ethernet Network Interface
ent0         Available U5802.001.9K84585-P1-C4-T1                                     03-00       2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent1         Available U5802.001.9K84585-P1-C4-T2                                     03-01       2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent2         Available U5877.001.9K8I925-P1-C4-T1                                     04-00       2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent3         Available U5877.001.9K8I925-P1-C4-T2                                     04-01       2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent4         Available U9117.MMD.06528F7-V13-C2-T1                                                Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent5         Available                                                                            EtherChannel / IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation
ent6         Available U9117.MMD.06528F7-V13-C3-T1                                                Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
inet0        Available                                                                            Internet Network Extension
rcm0         Defined                                                                              Rendering Context Manager Subsystem

I can see we have en1 ... en6 (without 't') and ent1....ent6.
What is the difference between the en1 and ent1 and so on ... ?

If checking the IP, I can see only "enX" (again without 't')
Code:
[root@DB_BI] / > ifconfig -a
en4: flags=1e080863,480<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),CHAIN>
        inet x.x.x.x netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast x.x.x.x
         tcp_sendspace 262144 tcp_recvspace 262144 rfc1323 1
en6: flags=1e080863,480<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),CHAIN>
        inet y.y.y.y netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast y.y.y.y
        inet z.z.z.z netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast z.z.z.z
         tcp_sendspace 262144 tcp_recvspace 262144 rfc1323 1
en5: flags=1e080863,c0<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),LARGESEND,CHAIN>
        inet u.u.u.u netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast u.u.u.u
         tcp_sendspace 131072 tcp_recvspace 65536 rfc1323 0
lo0: flags=e08084b,c0<UP,BROADCAST,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,LARGESEND,CHAIN>
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 broadcast 127.255.255.255
        inet6 ::1%1/0
         tcp_sendspace 131072 tcp_recvspace 131072 rfc1323 1

If I check with smitty tcpip, I see another "etX"
Code:
 en0   03-00   Standard Ethernet Network Interface                      |
                             |   en1   03-01   Standard Ethernet Network Interface                      |
                             |   en2   04-00   Standard Ethernet Network Interface                      |
                             |   en3   04-01   Standard Ethernet Network Interface                      |
                             |   en4           Standard Ethernet Network Interface                      |
                             |   en5           Standard Ethernet Network Interface                      |
                             |   en6           Standard Ethernet Network Interface                      |
                             |   et0   03-00   IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Network Interface                    |
                             |   et1   03-01   IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Network Interface                    |
                             |   et2   04-00   IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Network Interface                    |
                             |   et3   04-01   IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Network Interface                    |
                             |   et4           IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Network Interface                    |
                             |   et5           IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Network Interface                    |
                             |   et6           IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Network Interface

I notice only enX could have IP configured, etX not.
Code:
                                                        [Entry Fields]
* HOSTNAME                                           [xxx]
* Internet ADDRESS (dotted decimal)                  [x.x.x.x]
  Network MASK (dotted decimal)                      [255.255.255.0]
* Network INTERFACE                                   en4
  NAMESERVER
           Internet ADDRESS (dotted decimal)         [x.x.x.x]
           DOMAIN Name                               [dfs]
  Default Gateway
       Address (dotted decimal or symbolic name)     [x.x.x.x]
       Cost                                          [0]                                                                             #
       Do Active Dead Gateway Detection?              no                                                                            +
  Your CABLE Type                                     N/A                                                                           +
  START Now                                           no   


* HOSTNAME                                           [xxx]
* Internet ADDRESS (dotted decimal)                  []
  Network MASK (dotted decimal)                      []
* Network INTERFACE                                   et4
  NAMESERVER
           Internet ADDRESS (dotted decimal)         [y.y.y.y]
           DOMAIN Name                               [abc]
  Default Gateway
       Address (dotted decimal or symbolic name)     [y.y.y.y]
       Cost                                          [0]                                                                             #
       Do Active Dead Gateway Detection?              no                                                                            +
  Your CABLE Type                                     N/A                                                                           +
  START Now                                           no

Another thing, If look again the ifconfig, can see that en6 and en5 has 1 same IP 10.176.x.65 --> how can it?
Code:
en6: flags=1e080863,480<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),CHAIN>
        inet 10.176.x.65 netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast 10.176.39.255
        inet 10.176.x.127 netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast 10.176.39.255
         tcp_sendspace 262144 tcp_recvspace 262144 rfc1323 1
en5: flags=1e080863,c0<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),LARGESEND,CHAIN>
        inet 10.176.x.65 netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast 10.176.39.255

en6 has 2 IPs, but look in the smitty, just see only 1 IP 10.176.x.65 so where to configure the second IP 10.176.x.127???
Code:
* HOSTNAME                                           [xxx]
* Internet ADDRESS (dotted decimal)                  [10.176.x.65]
  Network MASK (dotted decimal)                      [255.255.248.0]
* Network INTERFACE                                   en6
  NAMESERVER
           Internet ADDRESS (dotted decimal)         [10.176.33.81]
           DOMAIN Name                               [dfs]
  Default Gateway
       Address (dotted decimal or symbolic name)     [10.176.32.1]
       Cost                                          [0]                                                                             #
       Do Active Dead Gateway Detection?              no                                                                            +
  Your CABLE Type                                     N/A                                                                           +
  START Now                                           no                                                                            +

# 2  
Old 05-15-2019
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phat

Code:
[root@xxx] / > lsdev -Cc adapter | grep en
ent0 Available 03-00 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent1 Available 03-01 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent2 Available 04-00 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent3 Available 04-01 2-Port 10/100/1000 Base-TX PCI-Express Adapter (14104003)
ent4 Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent5 Available       EtherChannel / IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation
ent6 Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)


Ok, WOW that is a mess.
Someone at one point in time felt it was needed to give two Physical adapters, two VIO adapters, and then somewhere they built a failover/link aggeration adapter with what I am going to assume is built from the two VIO Ethernet's



So ent adapters are used to specify the hardware adapter. Has nothing to do with TCP/IP address.
en represents the interface associated with hardware adapter. So, en0 *should* reference ent0. I say should because you can do "stupid" things like renaming an adapter!
et is used for IEE 802.3


Likely you are seeing an IP alias, that's why you have two ip's on the same adapter.

Now, as to two adapters with same IP, one could be disconnected at the physical layer.
**EDIT again. You can assign an IP to the ETherChannel adapter, and then the parent adapter. But its not a good way to go about it. That actually looks like what is happening here. Or someone tried to remove a backup adapter from the EtherChannel and gave it the IP.

To be honest, I'm not even sure where to begin with cleaning this up, or how far you want to go.
I'd recommend tracking down what ip's and what adapters are actually in use.
For the physical adapters, entstat -d <entX> should return in the output a 'PHYS_LINK_UP'
I am unsure on tracking it from the VIO side of things. You would have to trace from the client lpar, to the vio and look at the configuration.


From what you posted, it really looks to me like someone took the VIO ethernet adapters (ent4 and ent6) to create the EtherChannel adapter ent5, and en5 is your actual link to the outside world.
If that's the case, that's not an ideal configuration.
You should build your EtherChannel adapters at the VIO level, so ent1 and ent2 to make ent3, present ent3 up to the virtual switch so the client uses ent3 from the vio's for communication (client lpar would see it as ent0). Even if you had dual lpars, the setup would be the same because the virtual switch would handle any failover between the vio's.


There's a very good chance to clean this up properly you may have to sell an extended downtime.


**Edit: Also concerns me that the VIO may not be properly configured as well.

Last edited by RecoveryOne; 05-15-2019 at 08:30 PM..
This User Gave Thanks to RecoveryOne For This Post:
# 3  
Old 05-16-2019
Hi,

Quote:
Likely you are seeing an IP alias, that's why you have two ip's on the same adapter.

Now, as to two adapters with same IP, one could be disconnected at the physical layer.
**EDIT again. You can assign an IP to the ETherChannel adapter, and then the parent adapter. But its not a good way to go about it. That actually looks like what is happening here. Or someone tried to remove a backup adapter from the EtherChannel and gave it the IP.
How can I see where the alias IP is configured?

Quote:
To be honest, I'm not even sure where to begin with cleaning this up, or how far you want to go.
I can go very far Smilie

Could you shed some light on the parent Ether and child Ether?

And also with this, et is not used for IP address?
Quote:
et is used for IEE 802.3
--- Post updated at 05:18 AM ---

Hello,

After cleaning up, it's birghter Smilie
Code:
[root@xxx] / > lsdev -Cc adapter | grep en
ent4 Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent6 Available       Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)

[root@xxx] / > lsdev -C -H -F "name status physloc location description" | grep en
en4          Available                                                                            Standard Ethernet Network Interface
en6          Available                                                                            Standard Ethernet Network Interface
ent4         Available U9117.MMD.06528F7-V13-C2-T1                                                Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
ent6         Available U9117.MMD.06528F7-V13-C3-T1                                                Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
inet0        Available                                                                            Internet Network Extension
rcm0         Defined                                                                              Rendering Context Manager Subsystem
[root@xxx] / > ifconfig -a
en4: flags=1e080863,480<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),CHAIN>
        inet 10.176.x.127 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast xxx
         tcp_sendspace 262144 tcp_recvspace 262144 rfc1323 1
en6: flags=1e080863,480<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),CHAIN>
        inet 10.176.x.65 netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast xxx
        inet 10.176.x.127 netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast xxx
         tcp_sendspace 262144 tcp_recvspace 262144 rfc1323 1
lo0: flags=e08084b,c0<UP,BROADCAST,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,LARGESEND,CHAIN>
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 broadcast xxx
        inet6 ::1%1/0
         tcp_sendspace 131072 tcp_recvspace 131072 rfc1323 1

But I not yet find out where the alias IP (either 10.176.x.65 or 10.176.x.127) is configured.
# 4  
Old 05-16-2019
So to set/remove alias the clean way I recommend:
smitty tcpip --> Further configuration -->Network interface -->Network interface selection -->Configure alias
Once done, I do recommend checking against the ODM to make sure it was properly removed. I have had a few bad experiences where it was removed and yet the ODM hung onto it.
That would be
Code:
odmget -q "name = enX" CuAt

where enX is your adapter.
You should only see the primary network attributes.


Now, before you DO remove the alias, you should know why there was an alias setup in the first place! Is anything using that alias?

The few times I had alias's was for Oracle Databases, HA cluster, or I needed a route to a secure segment that was funky to setup.
I'm sure there's other use cases, but those are my only experiences.
# 5  
Old 05-17-2019
Hello,

Quote:
smitty tcpip --> Further configuration -->Network interface -->Network interface selection -->Configure alias
I have gone through this, but I don't see the alias IP. I think we have to put the alias IP here to remove. It's not already there for us to choose to remove Smilie


Code:
Type or select values in entry fields.
Press Enter AFTER making all desired changes.

                                                        [Entry Fields]
  Network INTERFACE                                   en6

* IPV4 ADDRESS (dotted decimal)                      []
  Network MASK (hexadecimal or dotted decimal)       []

1 more question, in the linux we can edit the ifcfg-ethx to make some changes. So on AIX, which file can we do the same to make changes to IP configuration?
# 6  
Old 05-17-2019
No you do not want to add an alias to remove an alias.


Also, its not as simple as editing a file on AIX to add in changes. AIX has whats called the ODM (Object Data Manager). The ODM is where the OS stores and maintains a lot of parameters about what is configured and set. Now, there are some files you can edit and cycle the services to take affect right away. Some examples are syslog.conf and sendmail.cf. The /etc/resolv.conf can also be edited on the fly if so necessary.



Could you paste the output of
Code:
odmget -q "name = enX" CuAt

for all your Ethernet devices? That would help us understand where that 2nd ip address is coming from.
# 7  
Old 05-20-2019
Hello,

I have copied the output from the ODM query:

Code:
[root@xxx] / > ifconfig -a
en4: flags=1e080863,480<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),CHAIN>
        inet 10.176.x.y netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.176.233.255
         tcp_sendspace 262144 tcp_recvspace 262144 rfc1323 1
en6: flags=1e080863,480<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,CHECKSUM_OFFLOAD(ACTIVE),CHAIN>
        inet 10.176.x.65 netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast 10.176.39.255
        inet 10.176.x.127 netmask 0xfffff800 broadcast 10.176.39.255
         tcp_sendspace 262144 tcp_recvspace 262144 rfc1323 1
lo0: flags=e08084b,c0<UP,BROADCAST,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,GROUPRT,64BIT,LARGESEND,CHAIN>
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 broadcast 127.255.255.255
        inet6 ::1%1/0
         tcp_sendspace 131072 tcp_recvspace 131072 rfc1323 1


[root@xxx] / > odmget -q "name = en4" CuAt
CuAt:
        name = "en4"
        attribute = "state"
        value = "up"
        type = "R"
        generic = "DU"
        rep = "sl"
        nls_index = 5

CuAt:
        name = "en4"
        attribute = "netaddr"
        value = "10.176.x.y"
        type = "R"
        generic = "DU"
        rep = "s"
        nls_index = 4

CuAt:
        name = "en4"
        attribute = "netmask"
        value = "255.255.255.0"
        type = "R"
        generic = "DU"
        rep = "s"
        nls_index = 8

[root@xxx] / > odmget -q "name = en6" CuAt
CuAt:
        name = "en6"
        attribute = "alias4"
        value = "10.176.x.127,255.255.x.x"
        type = "R"
        generic = "DU"
        rep = "s"
        nls_index = 0

CuAt:
        name = "en6"
        attribute = "netaddr"
        value = "10.176.x.65"
        type = "R"
        generic = "DU"
        rep = "s"
        nls_index = 4

CuAt:
        name = "en6"
        attribute = "state"
        value = "up"
        type = "R"
        generic = "DU"
        rep = "sl"
        nls_index = 5

CuAt:
        name = "en6"
        attribute = "netmask"
        value = "255.255.x.x"
        type = "R"
        generic = "DU"
        rep = "s"
        nls_index = 8

--- Post updated at 05:27 AM ---

Let me know if this info is helpful.
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