MavEtJu's Distorted View of the World

Routers routers routers routers... and troubles

Posted on 2007-06-13 22:00:00, modified on 2007-07-05 09:00:00
Tags: Networking

Due to a recent change in network infrastructure, we needed to move the place where the IP NATting is done. Logically speaking it's now done in the middle of the network, so that the traffic from the users (on the left) is passing through it, but the traffic from the servers (on the right) is not going through it and that sometimes gives problems.

In the right-hand side of the network we have an Extreme Networks BlackDiamond 8806 (to the servers) and an Extreme Networks X450 (to the BD8806 and the Internet), and the idea was that all traffic with RFC IP addresses as source going through it would be redirected through a NAT gateway. Great design, should work without problems!

        entry redirect_to_nat {  
                if match all {
                        source-address 10.0.0.0/8 ;
                } then {                           
                        redirect 10.252.13.38 ;
                }                                       
        }                                               

The manual says "You can use the statement configure access-list <aclname> < ingress | egress>". The BD8806 says "I only know ingress filtering". Yes, that is right. So instead of egress filtering on one port, we need to do ingress filtering on 47 ports. Not my idea of a good time. To do egress filtering you need a BD10808 or an 12804, not an BD8806....

No problem, then we do ingress filtering on the X450 connected to it! That one supports ingress filtering, but... It doesn't support the "redirect" command: You need an X450a or an X450e for that. Curse, swear, stamp-with-feet-on-the-ground-while-screaming.

To make a short project long... We have ordered another X450a...

Update: The new X450a came without a core licence, which means that it won't support BGP. We had two leftover core licence vouchers of earlier X450's which were never used. And today we found out that, despite that they are bought for the same price and offer the same functionality, that they can't be used on an X450a.

More updates: Because we couldn't install a real license, we installed a trial license. They give you the Core license functionality, are valid for 30 days and give you the opportunity to install your hardware without having to wait two days before the real license arrives. You can upgrade without rebooting from no license to trial license, and from no license to real license. To upgrade from trial license to real license you need to use the command "clear license-info", which tells you to reboot, but after the reboot the trial license is still there. It wasn't until we got into debug mode of the switch (which you can only do with the help of Extreme Networks TAC), entered the command "debug epm clear trial-license", and rebooted the switch.

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