VXLAN Configuration Module

This configuration module configures VXLAN data plane, VLAN-to-VXLAN mapping, and static head-end replication.

The module supports the following features:

• VLAN-to-VXLAN bridging implementing VLAN-based Service Interface as defined in RFC 7432/RFC 8365.

• Single VXLAN interface per device

• Default loopback address used as the VTEP IP address

• Static per-VLAN or per-node ingress replication

• Mapping a subset of VLANs into VXLAN VNIs

The module requires VLAN module (to set up vlans dictionary) and should be used with a routing protocol module to establish VTEP-to-VTEP connectivity.

Platform Support

The following table describes per-platform support of individual VXLAN features:

Operating system	VXLAN bridging	Per-VLAN replication	IPv6 VTEP
Arista EOS	✅	✅	❌
Aruba AOS-CX	✅	✅	❌
Cisco CSR 1000v	✅	✅	❌
Cisco Nexus OS	✅	✅	❌
Cumulus Linux	✅	✅	❌
Dell OS10	✅	✅	❌
FRR	✅	✅	✅
Nokia SR Linux	✅ ❗	❌	❌
Nokia SR OS	✅	❌	❌
VyOS	✅	✅	✅

Tip

See VXLAN Integration Tests Results for more details.

Global and Node Parameters

• vxlan.domain (node or global) – Ingress replication domain. Optional, default: global. Use this parameter when you want to build several isolated bridging domains within your lab.

• vxlan.flooding (node or global) – A mechanism used to implement VXLAN flooding. Optional, default: static.

• vxlan.vlans (node or global) – list of VLANs to be mapped into VXLAN VNIs. When missing, defaults to all VLANs.

• vxlan.use_v6_vtep (global) – Use the IPv6 Loopback address as VTEP address. To be used on the devices where you need to explicitly set the local VTEP address, or with static flooding to generate the flooding list with IPv6 addresses.

The only supported value for vxlan.flooding parameter is static – statically configured ingress replication

Module Parameters

The following default parameters influence VNI assignment:

• vxlan.start_vni: Specifies the first auto-assigned VNI (default: 100000).

To change the module defaults, set defaults.vxlan.value parameter(s) in lab topology.

Default Behavior

• All VLANs are mapped into VXLAN VNIs and bridged between VXLAN-enabled nodes.

• Without specifying vxlan.domain for individual nodes or groups of nodes, all VXLAN-enabled nodes belong to a single global bridging domain.

• VXLAN flooding is implemented with ingress replication. The VXLAN module builds per-VLAN VTEP replication lists for each node. Whether the device configuration uses VLAN-level or global replication lists is an implementation decision.

Selecting VXLAN-enabled VLANs

Global VLANs that should be extended with VXLAN transport are specified in vxlan.vlans global- or node-level list. When that parameter is missing, all VLANs use VXLAN transport.

VLANs specified in the vxlan.vlans list must be valid VLAN names, but do not have to be present on every node.

You can also enable a VLAN for VXLAN transport by setting vni VLAN parameter to an integer value.

Auto-Assign VNI

All VLANs specified in the vxlan.vlans list will get a vni attribute. To disable the auto-assignment for individual VLANs, set vni VLAN parameter to an integer value (static VNI) or False (no VNI).

For every VLAN, the VXLAN configuration module tries to use vxlan.start_vni + vlan.id as the VLAN VNI, and reverts to sequentially-allocated values when that VNI is already in use.

Building Ingress Replication Lists

The VXLAN module builds ingress replication lists for all nodes with vxlan.flooding set to static. Each VLAN-specific ingress replication list includes the VTEP IP addresses of all other nodes in the same vxlan.domain that have a VLAN with the same vni attribute.

All VLAN-specific ingress replication lists are merged into a node-level ingress replication list. Some devices support per-VLAN replication lists while others might use node-level replication list; the only difference is the amount of irrelevant traffic replicated across the VXLAN transport network.

Changing the VXLAN VTEP Source interface/address

By default, every node uses the first loopback interface/address as the default VTEP Source interface/address.

If you want your node to use a different loopback interface as VXLAN source, you need to define a loopback link, and add the vxlan.vtep attribute set to true, i.e.:

links:
- sw1:
  type: loopback
  pool: vteps
  vxlan.vtep: true

If you specify multiple loopback links with the vxlan.vtep attribute, only the first one will be considered.

Example

We want to create a simple two-switch network transporting two VLANs across VXLAN backbone. We have to define the VLANs first:

vlans:
  red:
    mode: bridge
  blue:
    mode: bridge

Next, we’ll define the switches and hosts groups to simplify node configuration. All switches will run Arista EOS and use VLAN, VXLAN, and OSPF modules.

groups:
  hosts:
    members: [ h1, h2, h3, h4 ]
    device: linux
  switches:
    members: [ s1,s2 ]
    device: eos
    module: [ vlan,vxlan,ospf ]

We also have to define individual nodes. Please note that we set node parameters (modules and device type) within switches and hosts groups.

nodes: [ h1, h2, h3, h4, s1, s2 ]

Finally, we have to define the links in our lab:

links:
- h1:
  s1:
    vlan.access: red
- h2:
  s2:
    vlan.access: red
- h3:
  s1:
    vlan.access: blue
- h4:
  s2:
    vlan.access: blue
- s1:
  s2:

Please note we did not have to define:

• VLAN tags or VXLAN VNIs

• VLAN-to-VXLAN mappings

• Any other VLAN or VXLAN parameters apart from VLAN names

• IP addresses or routing protocol parameters