How to configure APA for HP-UX?

What is HP APA:

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

HP APA Provides this 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 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.

# 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

1 2	# 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 existing configuration.These command sets will remove lan900 and save configuration. But on the other hand you can continue without remove “lan900” . So you will use 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 -

# 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 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

# 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 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

#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 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 is “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

##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"

#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

##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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Abdurrahim

I'm a System Engineer with extensive experience and administration skills and works for Interbank Card Center Of Turkey.I provide hardware and software support for the following Unix/Linux and Windows platforms.(Oracle Solaris,HP-UX, Linux, IBM-AIX, Windows Servers)

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