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Thread: Ring networks and Ethernet

  1. #1
    Senior Member Shad's Avatar
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    Ring networks and Ethernet

    I've been thinking about this all evening and I've managed to confuse myself greatly with this idea. Unfortunately my memories of token ring networking with BNC adapters are all but gone. But imagine the following scenario...

    3 PCs, each with a dual port Ethernet adapter.

    • Computer A
    • Port 1: 10.5.10.1
    • Port 2: 10.5.10.2

    • Computer B
    • Port 1: 10.5.10.3
    • Port 2: 10.5.10.4

    • Computer C
    • Port 1: 10.5.10.5
    • Port 2: 10.5.10.6


    The ring is connected as such:

    • Computer A Port 2 -> Computer B Port 1
    • Computer B Port 2 -> Computer C Port 1
    • Computer C Port 2 -> Computer A Port 1


    Is it possible to configure things so that if any node is down then the other two can continue talking? It seems like a dumb question at first, but each node has two IP addresses and one will disappear when the node its port is connected to goes down.

    Thoughts?
    Simon


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    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    I have no idea if tis would even work with regular Ethernet hardware and software stacks.

    To me, your thinking is sound, I just don't know if it will actually work. A bit of me thinks you would need hardware that knows about mesh networks, but I could be well off base with that.

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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    I think that would work with standard tdma-cd, each port would have its own mac address, and there would be an arp cache for each port. If one machine went down, the link between the other two would survive... I think.

    Token ring? Not a clue. Sorry.
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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    becomes a star network at that point surely
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    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    Pretty sure TCP/IP doesn't allow for this kind of configuration, not without super squiffy routing tables.

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    Senior Member Shad's Avatar
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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    Ok, now what if each adapter had its pair of ports configured as a team, for failover. One IP per adapter as far as the hosts are concerned but each adapter is connected in the same way as before, to two different nodes.

    I think that might work?

    Peter, I'm not actually looking to apply this to a token ring network, but modern Ethernet and TCP/IP. Hopefully 10GbE
    Simon


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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    No, I don't think that will. Each adaptor port, with a separate mac address and IP address will have its own stack. The address of the originating packet will be known, so the ack packets and responses will go back to the originator.

    There is no external routing, each port 'thinks' it is on a network with one other machine. If one port fails, then communication between those two machines fails.

    What you are suggesting for failover, I don't think will work, because each port must have a unique mac address. If they are both bound to the same IP address, then you would probably lose the identity of the originator. You are trying to apply layer 3 routing to layer2 protocols... I think.
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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    Linux bridging can do it by giving each port pair 1 logical IP address and forwarding packets with the ring given, or maybe with multiple addresses and a contrived routing table. Not sure how/if this is handled on Windows.
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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    Quote Originally Posted by aidanjt View Post
    Linux bridging can do it by giving each port pair 1 logical IP address and forwarding packets with the ring given, or maybe with multiple addresses and a contrived routing table. Not sure how/if this is handled on Windows.
    That is true, although the linux box is acting as a router, so in this case each machine would be its own router...
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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    Ok, I get the feeling that this has a very good chance of not working. I've also just discovered that the NICs I was considering buying don't have any mention of supporting LAGG or port teaming at the driver level in Windows, so it seems like that idea's a bit of a non-starter.

    I use DFS and replication between two servers but wanted to add the 10G layer to improve throughput to some of the shares. I think I can do that just by putting the 10G cards on a different subnet and adding additional folder targets using the IP addresses, while keeping the existing targets for replication and failover should the 10G link go down. Doing that I can link the 10G adapter in my workstation directly to each server, but not worry about linking each server together at 10G as the replication can continue to happen on the 1G subnet.

    Thanks for your input everyone


    PS - if anyone has a cheap 10GbE SFP+ switch kicking about, let me know
    Simon


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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    I might be worth playing obout with the cionfig at 1BB (or even 100Mb) to see if the config works with the mesh (before trying the failover) NICs are cheap enough and a couple of single port in each machine would give a representative test platform. The only caveat would be that it [I[might[/I] be hardware (ie NIC) dependent, but worth a bit of experimenting.
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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    That is true, although the linux box is acting as a router, so in this case each machine would be its own router...
    In the latter, but not the former.
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    Re: Ring networks and Ethernet

    Quote Originally Posted by Shad View Post
    I've been thinking about this all evening and I've managed to confuse myself greatly with this idea. Unfortunately my memories of token ring networking with BNC adapters are all but gone. But imagine the following scenario...

    3 PCs, each with a dual port Ethernet adapter.

    • Computer A
    • Port 1: 10.5.10.1
    • Port 2: 10.5.10.2

    • Computer B
    • Port 1: 10.5.10.3
    • Port 2: 10.5.10.4

    • Computer C
    • Port 1: 10.5.10.5
    • Port 2: 10.5.10.6


    The ring is connected as such:

    • Computer A Port 2 -> Computer B Port 1
    • Computer B Port 2 -> Computer C Port 1
    • Computer C Port 2 -> Computer A Port 1


    Is it possible to configure things so that if any node is down then the other two can continue talking? It seems like a dumb question at first, but each node has two IP addresses and one will disappear when the node its port is connected to goes down.

    Thoughts?
    Not that I approve of the idea in production but.......

    Get 1 server with 3x dual port 10G adapters (use copper ones) for a total of 6 ports.
    In windows on that server, create a network bridge - a handful of mouse clicks.
    Plus other servers in. OK you need more ports and one server is simply acting as a switch but it'd probably work
    How well I'm not sure though.
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