1Virtual eXtensible Local Area Networking documentation 2====================================================== 3 4The VXLAN protocol is a tunnelling protocol that is designed to 5solve the problem of limited number of available VLAN's (4096). 6With VXLAN identifier is expanded to 24 bits. 7 8It is a draft RFC standard, that is implemented by Cisco Nexus, 9Vmware and Brocade. The protocol runs over UDP using a single 10destination port (still not standardized by IANA). 11This document describes the Linux kernel tunnel device, 12there is also an implantation of VXLAN for Openvswitch. 13 14Unlike most tunnels, a VXLAN is a 1 to N network, not just point 15to point. A VXLAN device can either dynamically learn the IP address 16of the other end, in a manner similar to a learning bridge, or the 17forwarding entries can be configured statically. 18 19The management of vxlan is done in a similar fashion to it's 20too closest neighbors GRE and VLAN. Configuring VXLAN requires 21the version of iproute2 that matches the kernel release 22where VXLAN was first merged upstream. 23 241. Create vxlan device 25 # ip li add vxlan0 type vxlan id 42 group 239.1.1.1 dev eth1 26 27This creates a new device (vxlan0). The device uses the 28the multicast group 239.1.1.1 over eth1 to handle packets where 29no entry is in the forwarding table. 30 312. Delete vxlan device 32 # ip link delete vxlan0 33 343. Show vxlan info 35 # ip -d link show vxlan0 36 37It is possible to create, destroy and display the vxlan 38forwarding table using the new bridge command. 39 401. Create forwarding table entry 41 # bridge fdb add to 00:17:42:8a:b4:05 dst 192.19.0.2 dev vxlan0 42 432. Delete forwarding table entry 44 # bridge fdb delete 00:17:42:8a:b4:05 dev vxlan0 45 463. Show forwarding table 47 # bridge fdb show dev vxlan0 48