Virtual Network Template

This page describes how to define a new Virtual Network. A Virtual Network includes three different aspects:

Physical network attributes.
Address Range.
Configuration attributes for the guests.

When writing a Virtual Network template in a file, it follows the same syntax as the VM template.

Physical Network Attributes

These define the underlying networking infrastructure that will support the Virtual Network, such as the VLAN ID or the hypervisor interface to bind the Virtual Network to.

Attribute	Description	Value	Mandatory	Drivers
`NAME`	Name of the Virtual Network.	String	YES	All
`VN_MAD`	The network driver to implement the network.	802.1Q fw ovswitch vxlan dummy	YES	All
`BRIDGE`	Device to attach the Virtual Machines to, depending on the network driver it may refer to different technologies or require Host setups.	String	`YES` for dummy, ovswitch and fw	dummy 802.1Q vxlan ovswitch fw
`VLAN_ID`	Identifier for the VLAN.	Integer	`YES` unless `AUTOMATIC_VLAN_ID` for 802.1Q	802.1Q vxlan ovswitch
`AUTOMATIC_VLAN_ID`	If set to YES, OpenNebula will generate a VLAN ID automatically if VLAN_ID is not defined. Mandatory YES for 802.1Q if VLAN_ID is not defined, optional otherwise.	String	`YES` unless `VLAN_ID` for 802.1Q	802.1Q vxlan ovswitch
`PHYDEV`	Name of the physical network device that will be attached to the bridge.	String	`YES`	802.1Q vxlan

Quality of Service Attributes

This set of attributes limit the bandwidth of each NIC attached to the Virtual Network. Note that the limits are applied to each NIC individually and are not averaged over all the NICs (e.g., a VM with two interfaces in the same network).

Attribute	Description	Drivers
`INBOUND_AVG_BW`	Average bitrate for the interface in kilobytes/second for inbound traffic.	All
`INBOUND_PEAK_BW`	Maximum bitrate for the interface in kilobytes/second for inbound traffic.	All
`INBOUND_PEAK_KB`	Data that can be transmitted at peak speed in kilobytes.	All
`OUTBOUND_AVG_BW`	Average bitrate for the interface in kilobytes/second for outbound traffic.	All except ovswitch
`OUTBOUND_PEAK_BW`	Maximum bitrate for the interface in kilobytes/second for outbound traffic.	All except ovswitch
`OUTBOUND_PEAK_KB`	Data that can be transmitted at peak speed in kilobytes.	All except ovswitch

Warning

For Outbound QoS when using Open vSwitch, you can leverage the Open vSwitch QoS capabilities.

The Address Range

IPv4 Address Range

Attribute	Description	Mandatory
`TYPE`	`IP4`	YES
`IP`	First `IP` in the range in dot notation.	YES
`MAC`	First `MAC`, if not provided it will be generated using the `IP` and the `MAC_PREFIX` in `oned.conf`.	NO
`SIZE`	Number of addresses in this range.	YES

IPv6 Address Range

Important

IPv6 Address Ranges can use SIZE up to 2^128. However, note that a MAC address (48 bits) is also assigned to each lease. MAC addresses will be reused when the number of IPv6 addresses is bigger than 2^48.

Attribute	Description	Mandatory
`TYPE`	`IP6`	YES
`MAC`	First `MAC`, if not provided it will be generated.	NO
`GLOBAL_PREFIX`	A `/64` globally routable prefix.	NO
`ULA_PREFIX`	A `/64` unique local address (ULA) prefix corresponding to the `fd00::/8` block.	NO
`SIZE`	Number of addresses in this range.	YES

IPv6 Address Range (no-SLAAC)

Attribute	Description	Mandatory
`TYPE`	`IP6_STATIC`	YES
`MAC`	First `MAC`, if not provided it will be generated.	NO
`IP6`	First `IP6` (full 128 bits) in the range .	YES
`PREFIX_LENGTH`	Length of the prefix to configure VM interfaces.	YES
`SIZE`	Number of addresses in this range. If not provided it will be computed from `PREFIX_LENGTH`	NO

Dual IPv4-IPv6 Address Range

For the IPv6 SLAAC version the following attributes are supported:

Attribute	Description	Mandatory
`TYPE`	`IP4_6`	YES
`IP`	First IPv4 in the range in dot notation.	YES
`MAC`	First `MAC`, if not provided it will be generated using the `IP` and the `MAC_PREFIX` in `oned.conf`.	NO
`GLOBAL_PREFIX`	A `/64` globally routable prefix.	NO
`ULA_PREFIX`	A `/64` unique local address (ULA) prefix corresponding to the `fd00::/8` block	NO
`SIZE`	Number of addresses in this range.	YES

The no-SLAAC IPv6 version supports the following attributes:

Attribute	Description	Mandatory
`TYPE`	`IP4_6_STATIC`	YES
`IP`	First `IPv4` in the range in dot notation.	YES
`MAC`	First `MAC`, if not provided it will be generated using the `IP` and the `MAC_PREFIX` in `oned.conf`.	NO
`IP6`	First `IP6` (full 128 bits) in the range.	YES
`PREFIX_LENGTH`	Length of the prefix to configure VM interfaces.	YES
`SIZE`	Number of addresses in this range. If not provided it will be computed from `PREFIX_LENGTH`	NO

Ethernet Address Range

Attribute	Description	Mandatory
`TYPE`	`ETHER`	YES
`MAC`	First `MAC`, if not provided it will be generated randomly.	NO
`SIZE`	Number of addresses in this range.	YES

Contextualization Attributes

Attribute	Description
`NETWORK_ADDRESS`	Base network address.
`NETWORK_MASK`	Network mask.
`GATEWAY`	Default gateway for the network.
`GATEWAY6`	IPv6 router for this network.
`DNS`	DNS servers, a space separated list of servers.
`GUEST_MTU`	Sets the `MTU` for the NICs in this network.
`METRIC`	Route metric for default IPv4 gateway.
`IP6_METRIC`	Route metric for default IPv6 gateway.
`METHOD`	Sets IPv4 guest conf. method for NIC in this network.
`IP6_METHOD`	Sets IPv6 guest conf. method for NIC in this network.
`SEARCH_DOMAIN`	Default search domains for DNS resolution.

These attributes can be set in the (in order of precedence): VM Template NIC section, Address Range (AR), and Virtual Network Template.

Interface Creation Options

For 802.1Q, VXLAN and Open vSwitch drivers you can specify parameters in the VNET template. Option can be overridden or added per network.

Attribute	Description
`CONF`	Driver configuration options.
`BRIDGE_CONF`	Parameters for Linux bridge creation.
`OVS_BRIDGE_CONF`	Parameters for Open vSwitch bridge creation.
`IP_LINK_CONF`	Parameters for link creation.

CONF="vxlan_mc=239.0.100.0,test=false,validate_vlan_id=true"
BRIDGE_CONF="sethello=6"
OVS_BRIDGE_CONF="stp_enable=true"
IP_LINK_CONF="tos=10,udpcsum=,udp6zerocsumrx=__delete__"

Options can have an empty value when they don’t need a parameter. Also, the special value “_delete_” can be used to delete parameters set here.

You can find more information about these parameters in 802.1Q and VXLAN documentation.

Virtual Network Definition Examples

Sample IPv4 VNet:

# Configuration attributes (dummy driver)
NAME        = "Private Network"
DESCRIPTION = "A private network for VM inter-communication"

BRIDGE = "bond-br0"

# Context attributes
NETWORK_ADDRESS = "10.0.0.0"
NETWORK_MASK    = "255.255.255.0"
DNS             = "10.0.0.1"
GATEWAY         = "10.0.0.1"

#Address Ranges, only these addresses will be assigned to the VMs
AR=[TYPE = "IP4", IP = "10.0.0.10", SIZE = "100" ]

AR=[TYPE = "IP4", IP = "10.0.0.200", SIZE = "10" ]

Sample IPv4 VNet, using AR of just one IP:

# Configuration attributes (OpenvSwitch driver)
NAME        = "Public"
DESCRIPTION = "Network with public IPs"

BRIDGE  = "br1"
VLAN    = "YES"
VLAN_ID = 12

DNS           = "8.8.8.8"
GATEWAY       = "130.56.23.1"
LOAD_BALANCER = 130.56.23.2

AR=[ TYPE = "IP4", IP = "130.56.23.2", SIZE = "1"]
AR=[ TYPE = "IP4", IP = "130.56.23.34", SIZE = "1"]
AR=[ TYPE = "IP4", IP = "130.56.23.24", SIZE = "1"]
AR=[ TYPE = "IP4", IP = "130.56.23.17", MAC= "50:20:20:20:20:21", SIZE = "1"]
AR=[ TYPE = "IP4", IP = "130.56.23.12", SIZE = "1"]

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