I remember seeing something like a 4 port switch pci card a few decades ago, but they're simply not useful anymore when you can buy a 4 port gig switch for 5 bucks from china now. Any other 2-4 port card treats them as standalone nics each, and really aren't meant to be bridged together on a workstation or server. As Mac and I stated, it's more for redundancy to one or more switches. Bridging from physical to virtual interfaces for virtual machines is the primary use case for any bridging at all in a server, and should best be left at that outside of network appliances. I don't see why there is any aversion to running a switch to do this vs. a ring topology. -mb On Sat, Oct 5, 2019 at 1:44 PM Stephen Partington wrote: > I'll have to look. But I think there are ethernet controllers with small > switching fabric in them. > > That might be a level of scaling that would maybe work. > > On Sat, Oct 5, 2019, 9:15 AM Donald Mac McCarthy > wrote: > >> Kelly, >> >> Maybe I am missing something as to why this is a requirement. Is a ring >> configuration using RSTP a requirement? If that is the case, I haven't an >> answer that I think would help. I know RSTP allows for fast convergence of >> failure, I just haven't come across a case where the benefit mattered vs >> the complexity of scale. We tried to test RSTP when I was a cluster >> administrator at a university, (802.1W must be better than 802.1D right?) >> because a professor insisted that the performance of distributed operations >> would be better. This was a 4 rack cluster of ~70 nodes. The performance >> tanked. After a lot of trial and error, we settled on the architecture that >> I am attaching a drawing of using STP. >> >> If redundancy and ease of operation is what you want - I would use >> redundant switches and us Linux to create a bonded interface that is in an >> active-passive state. You will have to use a non LACP bond (teaming) as >> LACP does not work across switches. Your switch's backplane and uplinks >> will be the only bottlenecks that would occur in the network. Most >> enterprise switch manufactures build a backplane that can handle the >> traffic that is possible to send through the all the ports combined at >> theoretical max. >> >> 2 switches that have 2 or 4 port LACP bonds or if you use switches that >> have proprietary stacking cables, use the stacking cable. Also have an LACP >> to upstream switching as well. >> >> Hopefully the drawing attahed will help. >> >> I have run clusters of over 2500 nodes with a nearly identical >> configuration. We used 4x 10Gb per node, 2 LACP bonds per node into 48 port >> switches. Those switches had a 6x 40Gb uplinks that were split in LACP to 2 >> top of rack switches. Top of rack switches had 100Gb uplinks to core. At >> the core were multiple internal networks as well as multiple wan >> connections. >> >> My point in talking about the size and speed is not to brag (well, kinda >> - don't we all like cool toys), but to point out that this architecture >> will work with 1Gb switches and machines of 6 nodes all the way to >> thousands of nodes with bigger uplinks. You can scale the switching as your >> hardware changes and scales. The architecture remains the same. >> >> If you are only using 100 nodes, you have less complication. As for plug >> and play like behavior, as long as you don't mac lock the switchports - the >> switches wont care what you plug into them as long as the NICs are properly >> configured. >> >> Hope this helps. If I have missed something - I hope someone else finds >> this useful. >> >> Mac >> >> kelly stephenson wrote on 10/4/19 3:34 PM: >> >> Looking for some networking advice from the group. >> >> The system I have has several devices connected in a ring configuration >> using one Ethernet port IN and one Ethernet port out. The system uses RSTP >> for loop free operation. The idea is simplicity for installation, you just >> unplug and plugin a new device in the ring plus you gain redundancy, if one >> Ethernet cable breaks you still have another one. This works but my client >> has never had more then a half dozen devices on the network yet. >> When I say devices just imagine very large machines. The number of >> devices could be as many as 100 in the ring or network. Everything I've >> researched on RSTP says over 8 devices and its not effective/efficient so >> I'm researching other Ethernet failover/failsafe/redundant solutions. >> So, the local network configuration needs to scale up to 100 devices, >> have redundancy, and low latency for M2M control. Any thoughts? >> >> Thanks >> Kelly >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >> https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss