virtual Ethernet

The TAP driver allows the guest operating system to read or write raw Ethernet frames to a virtual Ethernet device (extended to user space).

The second virtual Ethernet adapter on each of the VIO Servers must be configured as a non-trunk adapter.

Add a virtual disk definition unit and a virtual Ethernet connection unit to the virtual image.

Virtual Ethernet: Virtual Ethernet allows for inter-partition- and IP-based communications between logical partitions on the same frame.

Each partition can have up to 65, 534 virtual Ethernet adapters connected to the virtual switch.

The partition owning both adapters can route traffic between the physical and virtual Ethernet's.

The enablement and setup of virtual Ethernet does not require any special hardware or software.

You define virtual Ethernet and disk devices on the VIO Server and then make them available to the other LPARs on the system.

The developer should seriously consider using a virtual Ethernet LAN for intra-partition communication.

When configuring the profiles of the VIO Servers on the HMC, create two virtual Ethernet adapters on each server.

After you enable a specific virtual Ethernet for a partition, a network device named ethXX is created in the partition.

In most cases, however, you will want to allow partitions connected to a virtual Ethernet to also communicate with the physical network.

Besides the economic and ease-of-use factors, the virtual Ethernet LAN will run at approximately gigabit speeds.

Figure 5 depicts the example with the addition of a two virtual Ethernet LANs.

The screen shot of the second virtual Ethernet adapter for the VIO Servers should look the same.

When VIO servers are created, they are assigned both physical Ethernet adapters and virtual Ethernet adapters.

Create a dependency link from the virtual Ethernet connection unit in the virtual image to the L2 connection in the physical server.

Then, the VIO client LPARs are told the virtual Ethernet adapters and VLAN numbers they should access through an SEA mapping.

The virtual Ethernet device in user space then moves Ethernet frames to and from the real Ethernet device in the host operating system.

Figure 4 shows that the LPAR is configured with virtual Ethernet and virtual SCSI adapters.

You should also set up a third virtual Ethernet adapter on each VIO Server using the Virtual LAN ID of the trunk adapter.

Two other concepts you should be familiar with are virtual Ethernet and shared Ethernet.

You can define up to 4, 094 separate virtual Ethernet LANs (VLANs).

This is required in order for the virtual ethernet devices to access the physical ethernet adapter and the external network.

If you recall, you tried to change an adapter earlier that was configured with virtual Ethernet.

The insmod argument in Listing 4 loads a virtual Ethernet adapter.

The VIO client LPARs are told which virtual Ethernet adapters they should use for their communication.

The server on the left has several partitions, each of which is on the same virtual Ethernet LAN.

From this menu you can see the virtual Ethernet adapter we created previously with the 383 primary VLAN and the 373 additional VLAN.

This is a very typical use of virtual Ethernet, because the communication is very fast and no additional hardware is required.

Step 3: Assign the virtual Ethernet ID to a physical adapter