Configuring Dynamic Routes

The NS kernel routing table holds subnet routes corresponding to the NSIP and to each SNIP and MIP. Usually, no routes corresponding to VIPs are present in the NS kernel routing table. The exception is a VIP added by using the add ns ip command and configured with a subnet mask other than 255.255.255.255. If there are multiple IP addresses belonging to the same subnet, they are abstracted as a single subnet route. In addition, this table holds a route to the loopback network (127.0.0.0) and any static routes added through the command line interface (CLI). The entries in this table are used by the NetScaler in packet forwarding. From the NetScaler CLI, they can be inspected with the show route command.

The sole purpose of the FreeBSD routing table is to facilitate initiation and termination of management traffic (telnet, ssh, etc.). In a NetScaler appliance, these applications are tightly coupled to FreeBSD, and it is imperative for FreeBSD to have the necessary information to handle traffic to and from these applications. This routing table contains a route to the NSIP subnet and a default route. In addition, FreeBSD adds routes of type WasCloned(W) when the NetScaler establishes connections to hosts on local networks. Because of the highly specialized utility of the entries in this routing table, all other route updates from the NS kernel and NSM FIB routing tables bypass the FreeBSD routing table. Do not modify it with the route command. The FreeBSD routing table can be inspected by using the netstat command from any UNIX shell.

The NSM FIB routing table contains the advertisable routes that are distributed by the dynamic routing protocols to their peers in the network. It may contain:

After failover, the secondary node takes some time to start the protocol, learn the routes, and update its routing table. But this does not affect routing, because the routing table on the secondary node is identical to the routing table on the primary node. This mode of operation is known as non-stop forwarding.

After failover, the new primary node injects all its VIP routes into the upstream router. However, that router retains the old primary node's routes for 180 seconds. Because the router is not aware of the failover, it attempts to load balance traffic between the two nodes. During the 180 seconds before the old routes expire, the router sends half the traffic to the old, inactive primary node, which is, in effect, a black hole.

To prevent this, the new primary node, when injecting a route, assigns it a metric that is slightly lower than the one specified by the old primary node.

To configure dynamic routing, you can use either the configuration utility or a command-line interface. The NetScaler supports two independent command-line interfaces: the NetScaler CLI and the Virtual Teletype Shell (VTYSH). The NetScaler CLI is the appliance's native shell. VTYSH is exposed by ZebOS. The NetScaler routing suite is based on ZebOS, the commercial version of GNU Zebra.