Can you use a bond (LAGG) to create a VM bridge?

[tsm37]

Please see the attached image of my network interfaces. I have Windows virtual machines that I want them to have access to the host because I want the VMs to be able to save files on SMB shares hosted by my Truenas Scale NAS. I'm running into issues with creating a VM bridge. As you can see in the screenshot, the two 10 Gbps ports on my x550-t2 are physically connected to my 10 Gbps switch, and these two interfaces are part of the link aggregation. Is it even possible to create a VM bridge using the bond?

I did try it and it made my NAS unreachable via IP, and I had to kill the bridge using the console. Did I do something wrong? What should I do in my scenario? I really want my VMs to have access to the host, but at the same time, I want to keep my link aggregation.

I'm afraid that I need to activate one of the 2.5 Gbps NICs as shown in the picture and create a VM bridge using a 2.5Gbps NIC? I really hope this is not the case; however, I feel like once a network interface is part of a bridge or link aggregation, you cannot use that network interface for something else.

I'm on TrueNAS-SCALE-22.12.1.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Did you move the IP address configuration from the bond interface to the bridge interface?

 

[tsm37]

Did you move the IP address configuration from the bond interface to the bridge interface?

Mr. Hausen, thank you for the tips. It works. I had to remove the static IP of bond1 in console; create a bridge called br1 and add bond1 as the interface and then set the static ip address at the bridge. Applied the setting; rebooted the NAS; launched the VM and the VM was able to access the host's SMB shares. Importantly, the bond/link aggregation didn't break.

Case is closed.

 

[NickF]

Mr. Hausen, thank you for the tips. It works. I had to remove the static IP of bond1 in console; create a bridge called br1 and add bond1 as the interface and then set the static ip address at the bridge. Applied the setting; rebooted the NAS; launched the VM and the VM was able to access the host's SMB shares. Importantly, the bond/link aggregation didn't break.

Case is closed.

Hey, just because the story is a little more complicated than that, I would recommend you read my thread from a few months back.

Accessing NAS from VM Still Broken without Bridge

Hi All, I just wanted to circle back to this since I haven't seen any update on this topic in a while. Is there an actual ticket number I can reference @morganL ? Tom Lawrence (@LawrenceSystems on here) Brought this up in his video on Bluefin today (and in previous videos)...

www.truenas.com

FWIW In your current config, inter-VM traffic and VM-to-host-traffic is now leaving your server, going to your network switch, and then back to your server. It's a really inefficient design. I'd recommend making a seperate br interface that is not tied to a physical NIC, and use that network interface to allow your VMs and your host to talk.

 

[tsm37]

Hey, just because the story is a little more complicated than that, I would recommend you read my thread from a few months back.

Accessing NAS from VM Still Broken without Bridge

Hi All, I just wanted to circle back to this since I haven't seen any update on this topic in a while. Is there an actual ticket number I can reference @morganL ? Tom Lawrence (@LawrenceSystems on here) Brought this up in his video on Bluefin today (and in previous videos)...

www.truenas.com

FWIW In your current config, inter-VM traffic and VM-to-host-traffic is now leaving your server, going to your network switch, and then back to your server. It's a really inefficient design. I'd recommend making a seperate br interface that is not tied to a physical NIC, and use that network interface to allow your VMs and your host to talk.

@NickF Thanks for sharing the link of that discussion and it is an interesting topic which made me become aware of it. However, it is beyond my knowledge since IT is not my profession and also, I'm not using Scale in a business environment. I can "live" with how a VM behaves over a bridge by design. For what is worth, im coming from Synology and things that truenas scale can offer are significant upgrades n my use case.