EVB Support in Oracle Solaris

Currently, no defined standards exist for defining VSI profiles, for example, the specific properties that should be included in a profile. Furthermore, the definition of VSI types is closely linked to a VSI Manager ID, which is typically vendor-specific.

Oracle Solaris defines a VSI Manager by using a 3-byte encoding, oracle_v1. This VSI Manager supports the following datalink properties:

• Bandwidth limits

• Link speed of the underlying link

• Traffic Class

• Maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the VNIC

The oracle_v1 encoding is defined as follows:

The 3–byte encoding is directly used as the VSI Type ID in Oracle Solaris

Thus, in Oracle Solaris, the tuple that is advertised to the bridge is the Oracle VSI Manager and the combined VSI Type ID-VSI Version ID pair. The mechanism for the exchange of VSI information follows the same process described in EVB Components for VSI Information Exchange. The bridge is configured to recognize the Oracle VSI Manager. The bridge then uses the Oracle VSI Manager ID and the combined VSI Type ID-VSI Version ID to obtain the set of properties that are associated with the VSI profile. After the bridge obtains the property information, the bridge can apply the property configurations on packets for that VNIC.

An Oracle organization-specific OUI TLV unit is sent after the transmission of the VSI Manager ID TLV. The OUI TLV indicates any encoding if any that is used for the VSI Manager ID that it follows. If a bridge recognizes the Oracle-defined VSI Manager ID, the bridge includes that TLV unit when replying to the requesting station. The absence of the Oracle-specific TLV unit in the bridge's response indicates that the Oracle VSI Manager is not recognized nor supported on the switch.

EVB-Related Datalink Properties

The following is a list of configurable datalink properties that are related to EVB:

• vsi-mgrid specifies the VSI Manager ID that is set either for the physical link or the VNIC. In Oracle Solaris, this property is associated with ORACLE_VSIMGR_V1, the default VSI Manager ID.

  If you prefer to use an IPv6 address, then you must also define the VSI Type ID and VSI Version ID. Otherwise, the tuple will not be recognized by Oracle Solaris. Further, you must also manually configure the appropriate datalink properties that correspond to a VSI Type ID-VSI Version ID/VSI Manager ID tuple.

  Preferably, you should use the default Oracle VSI Manager ID when using EVB. In this manner, the Oracle VSI Manager can automatically generate VSI Type IDs and VSI Version IDs for the station's VSI profiles.

• vsi-mgrid-enc indicates the encoding that is associated with the VSI Manager ID. By default, this property is set to oracle_v1. If you do not want to associate the oracle_v1 with the VSI Manager ID, set this property to the value none.

• vsi-typeid specifies a VSI Type ID. A VSI Type ID pairs with a VSI Version ID to be associated with a VSI profile. This 3-byte value is automatically generated if you use the default values for vsi-mgrid and vsi-mgrid-enc. Otherwise, you must explicitly specify a value for this property.

• vsi-vers specifies a VSI Version ID. The VSI Version ID pairs with a VSI Type ID to be associated with a VSI profile. This 1-byte value is automatically generated if you use the default values for vsi-mgrid and vsi-mgrid-enc. Otherwise, you must explicitly specify a value for this property.

In addition to the properties in the previous list, the following read-only properties provide information about the actual EVB configuration that is operative on the system:

• vsi-mgrid-effective specifies the VSI Manager ID on a virtual link or VNIC.

• vsi-mgrid-enc-effective refers to the VSI Manager ID encoding that is used for a virtual link or VNIC, and which is the basis of the VSI Manager ID.

• vsi-typeid-effective specifies the effective VSI Type ID on a virtual link or VNIC.

• vsi-vers-effective specifies the effective VSI Version on a link.

Using EVB On the Station

To use EVB on your station, you must install the EVB package. Type the following command:

# pkg install evb

Preferably, you should accept the default EVB configuration that is automatically enabled after package installation. The EVB configuration is based on using the Oracle VSI Manager for enabling EVB. By accepting the default EVB configuration, the station can immediately exchange VSI information with the bridge about any VNIC that you have configured on the station.

The following example displays EVB-related properties on the physical link:

# dladm show-linkprop -p vsi-mgrid,vsi-mgrid-enc
LINK     PROPERTY            PERM VALUE        DEFAULT      POSSIBLE
net4     vsi-mgrid           rw   --           ::           --
net4     vsi-mgrid-enc       rw   --           oracle_v1    none,oracle_v1

The output displays the default configuration of EVB in Oracle Solaris 11. By using the oracle_v1 encoding, the Oracle VSI Manager manages VSIs and their datalink properties that are recognized and supported by the Oracle VSI Manager.

If you do not want to use the default configuration, change the encoding to none.

# dladm set-linkprop -p vsi-mgrid-enc=none net4

Thereafter, you must manually provide the IPv6 address to be used as the VSI Manager ID, define VSI Type IDs, all the other EVB-related components and their properties.

The following example displays EVB-related properties on a VSI or VNIC.

# dladm show-linkprop vnic0
LINK     PROPERTY                 PERM VALUE      DEFAULT  POSSIBLE
...
vnic0    vsi-typeid               rw   --         --       --
vnic0    vsi-typeid-effective     r-   65684      --       --
vnic0    vsi-vers                 rw   --         --       --
vnic0    vsi-vers-effective       r-   0          --       --
vnic0    vsi-mgrid                rw   --         --       --
vnic0    vsi-mgrid-effective      r-   ::         --       --
vnic0    vsi-mgrid-enc-effective  r-   oracle_v1  --       --
...

The output displays the values based on using the Oracle VSI Manager. The VSI's effective encoding of its VSI Manager ID is oracle_v1. In turn, the Type ID 65684 is automatically generated and effective for vnic0.

The following example shows information about the VDP state for physical Ethernet links if EVB is enabled on the station. To display information only for a single link, specify that link in the command. Otherwise, VDP information for all Ethernet links is displayed.

# dladm show-ether -P vdb 
VSI     LINK   VSIID             VSI-TYPEID VSI-STATE   CMD-PENDING
vnic0   net4   2:8:20:2c:ed:f3   65684/0    TIMEDOUT    NONE
vnic1   net4   2:8:20:df:73:77   65684/0    TIMEDOUT    NONE

The output shows that two VSIs are configured over the link net4. Their specific VSI IDs refer to their respective MAC addresses. Based on the default values of vsi-mgrid, both VSIs have the same VSI Type ID, which is 65684.

To obtain statistics about outgoing or incoming VDP packets, use the following command:

# dlstat show-ether -P vdb