High Availability Traffic/Heartbeats are not seen on NetScaler Tagged Channel Network Interfaces
Article ID: CTX201788
Updated On:
Description
If you are optimizing traffic on a multi tenant server network with numerous VLANs, while isolating management traffic you might encounter a problem where heartbeat packets are not visible on all interfaces.
This is common on NetScaler high availability pairs using Link Aggregation on ether-channel switch ports (in this example Cisco Switches). The following demonstrates this issue:
> show node 1) Node ID: 0 IP: 10.187.125.21 (ns01) Node State: UP Master State: Primary Fail-Safe Mode: OFF INC State: DISABLED Sync State: ENABLED Propagation: ENABLED Enabled Interfaces : 0/1 LA/1 Disabled Interfaces : 1/8 1/7 1/6 1/4 1/3 1/2 0/2 HA MON ON Interfaces : 1/8 1/7 1/6 1/4 1/3 1/2 0/1 0/2 LA/1 Interfaces on which heartbeats are not seen : LA/1 Interfaces causing Partial Failure: None SSL Card Status: UP Hello Interval: 200 msecs Dead Interval: 3 secs Node in this Master State for: 0:21:42:50 (days:hrs:min:sec) 2) Node ID: 1 IP: 10.187.125.22 Node State: UP Master State: Secondary Fail-Safe Mode: OFF INC State: DISABLED Sync State: SUCCESS Propagation: ENABLED Enabled Interfaces : 0/1 LA/1 Disabled Interfaces : 1/8 1/7 1/6 1/4 1/3 1/2 0/2 HA MON ON Interfaces : 1/8 1/7 1/6 1/4 1/3 1/2 0/1 0/2 LA/1 Interfaces on which heartbeats are not seen : LA/1 Interfaces causing Partial Failure: None SSL Card Status: UP Local node information: Critical Interfaces: 0/1 LA/1 Done
In most situations the heartbeat packets will stop by vLAN tagging mismatch on the switch. Review the following article for additional information: CTX109843 - How to Configure a NetScaler Appliance Using Link Aggregation to Connect Pairs of Interfaces to the Cisco Switches
Resolution
The Netscaler IP is by default on native VLAN 1 (NSVLAN). This is important because the Heartbeat traffic will be Tagged with VLAN 1 on configured tagged interfaces. You will need to one of the following:
- make NSVLAN the native VLAN on the switch side for the interface(s) specified on "Interfaces on which heartbeats are not seen". With this configuration the untagged HA traffic will be allowed and not dropped by the switch.
- make sure the NSVLAN is tagged and allow this VLAN on the switch side for the interface(s) specified on "Interfaces on which heartbeats are not seen". With this configuration the tagged HA traffic will be allowed and not dropped by the switch. (Review the need of -tagall option of an interface config)
Note: Refer to CTX123172 for additional details on how to configure NSVLAN. Refer to CTX122921 for NSVLAN/VLAN configuration examples.
Important: After committing the preceding actions, you need to remove and recreate the HA pair.
Issue/Introduction
Additional Information
