On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 3:50 PM, Andrey Khomyakov <khomyakov.andrey@gmail.com> wrote:
Seems like to do that I'd have to run a software router on a VM that would [snip] For a VM router (for performance reasons is different than what i'd suggest for a generic software router), I would suggest picking an off-the-shelf OS that Vmxnet2 or Vmxnet3 drivers are available for, see KB1001805, make sure to install the VM tools, change vNICs' type to vmx. Standard OS + quagga, openbgpd, or other. Vyatta should be great, if you are able to compile the vmx drivers for it.
Hopefully you are not planning to forward high-PPS traffic through a single VM; vNICs are potentially a serious bottleneck in that scenario. If traffic is not trivial, I would suggest using third-party next-hop routing, that is, with VM-based routers removed from forwarding path, by acting as route server, or announcing as next-hop another (real) third-party router's IP instead one of its own IPs (requiring all 3 routers to share a subnet). Or investigate layer 2 extension of an upstream subnet via L2TPv3 pseudo-wire service, or Cisco OTV, etc.... then design failover scenario to not require a VM involvement. Another thought is OSPF /32 host advertisements on some 'beacon' VM(s), with tracked routes for 'virtual subnet' selection, instead of a "router" VM. Those are some vague thoughts... I'm just saying, almost anything, other than having a VM forward packets for subnets, if it is avoidable, even tunnelling -- on a non-VM router... :) -- -J