How to configure APA for HP-UX?

HowtTos / November 29, 2019 / By:

Contents

  1. How to  Install and  Configure HP APA
    1. Step 1: Check binaries
    2. Step 2: Verify  that package  is configured in the kernel
    3. Step 3: Check already configured  APA interface
    4. Step 4: Create  link aggregation
    5. Step 5: Configure IP  information
    6. Step 6: Restart  APA and Network

HP (APA) "Auto Port Aggregation " is a software that makes it possible to create a link aggregates group. This software provides a logical grouping (lan900-lan901 etc.)  two or more physical network interface under into one logical interface.

HP APA Provides these features: 

• Automatic link failure detection and recovery
• Support for load balancing of network traffic across all of the links in the aggregation.
• Support for the creation of failover groups, providing a failover capability for links.
• Support for the TCP Segmentation Offload (Large Send) feature, if an aggregate is created with all Ethernet cards capable of TCP Segmentation Offload (TSO).
• Support for Virtual VLANs (VLANs) over APA link aggregates and failover groups.
• Support for 64-bit MIB (RFC 2863) statistics, if all the interfaces within a link aggregate or failover group support 64-bit statistics.
• Support for IPv6 addresses on a link aggregate or failover group.

You can get all the information about  HP APA features from this link.

How to  Install and  Configure HP APA

Step 1: Check binaries

You can use "swlist"  command for hp-ux to check if binary installed on your server.

 

# swlist -l product | grep -i HP-APA
HP-APA-FMT B.11.31.1705 HP Auto-Port Aggregation APA formatter product.
HP-APA-KRN B.11.31.1705 HP Auto-Port Aggregation APA kernel products.
HP-APA-LM B.11.31.1705 HP Auto-Port Aggregation APA LM commands.
HP-APA-NETMOD B.11.31.1705 HP Auto-Port Aggregation nwmgr/NCweb libraries.
HP-APA-RUN B.11.31.1705 HP Auto-Port Aggregation APA command products.

 

Step 2: Verify  that package  is configured in the kernel

# what /stand/vmunix | egrep -i hp_apa
$Revision: hp_apa: B.11.31.1705_LR

Step 3: Check already configured  APA interface

We can observe that there is one apa interface that already configured. If you will intend to create a  new APA configuration, you should remove the existing configuration. These command sets  will remove lan900 and save the configuration. But on the other hand, you can continue without remove  "lan900". So you will use the next available interface which  "lan901".

# nwmgr -d -S apa -A links=all -c lan900
# nwmgr -s -S apa -A all --saved --from cu
#ifconfig lan2
#ifconfig lan2 unplumb
#ifconfig lan3
#ifconfig lan3  unplumb
# nwmgr -S apa
Class Mode Load Speed- Membership
Instance Balancing Duplex
======== =========== ========= ==================== ===========================
lan900 MANUAL LB_MAC 2.000000 Gbps Full Duplex2,3
lan901 Not_Enabled LB_PORT 0.000000 Mbps -
lan902 Not_Enabled LB_PORT 0.000000 Mbps -
lan903 Not_Enabled LB_PORT 0.000000 Mbps -
lan904 Not_Enabled LB_PORT 0.000000 Mbps -

 

Step 4: Create  link aggregation

You need to check the configuration file that configured  SYSLOG and other options.

# cat /etc/rc.config.d/hp_apaconf|grep -v '#'
HP_APA_USE_SYSLOG=1
HP_APA_START_LA_PPA=900
HP_APA_DEFAULT_PORT_MODE=MANUAL
HP_APA_INTERFACE_NAME[0]=lan900
HP_APA_LOAD_BALANCE_MODE[0]=LB_MAC

Find a suitable interface that you will use to create aggregation. We will use  lan2 and  lan3 for our test.

#nwmgr
Name/ Interface Station Sub- Interface Related
ClassInstance State Address system Type Interface
============== ========= ============== ======== ============== =========
lan0 DOWN 0xD439EF06A2A0 iocxgbe 10GBASE-KR
lan1 DOWN 0xD429EF0AA2A4 iocxgbe 10GBASE-KR
lan2 UP 0xD429EF2bA2A8 iocxgbe 10GBASE-KR
lan3 UP 0xD41E126V3ABC iocxgbe 10GBASE-KR
lan4 UP 0xE4115B6V4248 iocxgbe 10GBASE-KR
lan5 UP 0xE4115B6V424C iocxgbe 10GBASE-KR

Now, we create a command sets to configure  lan900 and also save it. You can check the APA document which I added above. There are some options that you need to change. For example, I used lb mode  LB_MAC. This mode is used by default.

Other options are "mode". You can define this parameter like "LACP_AUTO " etc. It depends on what you need?

##Create lan900 interface##
#nwmgr -a -S apa -c lan900 -A links=2,3 -A mode=MANUAL -A lb=LB_MAC
##Save Configuration##
#nwmgr -s -S apa -A all --saved --from cu
##Check Configuration##
#nwmgr -S apa -I 900 -A all


Step 5: Configure IP  information

You sould edit this  configuration file to define  IP address.(/etc/rc.confg.d/netconf )

#vi /etc/rc.confg.d/netconf
INTERFACE_NAME[1]="lan900"
IP_ADDRESS[1]="192.128.125.80"
SUBNET_MASK[1]="255.255.255.0"
BROADCAST_ADDRESS[1]=""
INTERFACE_STATE[1]="up"
DHCP_ENABLE[1]="0"
INTERFACE_MODULES[1]=""
ROUTE_SOURCE[1]=""
ROUTE_SKIP[1]=""
ROUTE_GATEWAY[1]="192.128.125.10"
ROUTE_DESTINATION[1]="default"
ROUTE_COUNT[1]="1"

Step 6: Restart  APA and Network

##Apa Restart##
#/sbin/init.d/hpapa stop
#/sbin/init.d/hpapa start

##Network Restart##
#/sbin/init.d/net stop
#/sbin/init.d/net start

 

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