Interfaces Menu

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VDS Setup

The first option in the interfaces menu is a sub-menu for configuring the virtual distribution system. Selecting this sub-menu will provide you with the option to create a new VDS, as well as a list of VDS adapters found.

If VDS adapters exist, they will display summary information including what mode they are configured in (server or client), their status (active or inactive), the MTU settings, number of assigned IPs, and bridge group assignments. Selecting a VDS adapter will provide another sub-menu with options to reconfigure the device, change ip assignments, view the beacon realtime traffic monitor, or delete the device.

When create new VDS is selected, a dialog box will be provided for the configuration settings. These settings are discussed below. After configuring a VDS device, the configuration dialog can be re-opened and the settings can be changed by choosing "reconfigure this device" under the appropriate VDS device.

VDS devices can be assigned IP addresses and placed within bridge groups with the IP assignments dialog box, in the same manner as ethernet and wireless pci devices. Beacon realtime traffic monitor is only available for active VDS devices, and will provide the traffic information for the bridge group the VDS is a member of, if applicable.

VDS Options

A VDS adapter can be given a user-configured name from vds1 to vds20. All other names will be rejected by the configuration software.

The VDS adapter can be enabled or disabled with a checkbox within the configuration dialog box. In addition, the user can select whether the adapter is operating in the role of master or client.

Each VDS adapter must have a profile name and password defined. This name and password must match for all partners in a VDS link.

A VDS adapter can have CBQ settings configured. It is possible to have one CBQ rule on the master VDS adapter that will be shared among all connected clients and individual, different CBQ rules for client VDS adapters. In such case, the more binding CBQ restriction will take effect. For example, consider a server which is configured with a 1Mbit download limit and has five clients each configured with 256Kbit download limits. If any one client is downloading a file, its traffic will be restricted to 256Kbit. If all five clients download files at the same time, the total bandwidth will be restricted to 1Mbit, causing each client to be restricted to 200Kbit, despite their higher individual limits.

A VDS adapter operating in the master role can be configured to use compression (levels 1 to 9 are the selectable options), AES encryption, and keep alive.

A VDS adapter operating in the client role must be configured with the IP of the master they are connecting to.

VLAN Setup

Virtual LAN interfaces, or VLANs, can be used to separate traffic from two or more networks that is running on the same wired or wireless network.

A VLAN can be defined with a TagID from 0 to 4094, although it is recommended to not use 0 or 1 if Cisco equipment is present on the network.

Each VLAN must be attached to a physical device in the system, either an ethernet port (ether1, ether2, etc.) or a wireless port (wpci1, wpci2, etc.).

Configuration options are available to reorder headers and to change the MAC address of information flowing across a VLAN. The options are only recommended in cases where there is a specific reason to do so (such as enabling reorder header if DHCP leases are not working properly on the VLAN).

Information pertaining to VLAN setup taken from the StarV3 Manual, copyright 2006 Valemount Networks Corparation and David A. Bandel.

DHCP Client Information

The DHCP Client information sub-menu has two options that are available if the dhcp-client service is running and bound to an interface in the system. The first option, view active lease, will open a window displaying the current DCHP Lease information. If no lease has been obtained, the window will report "There is no lease at this time." The second option, dhcp lease renew, will force dhcp-client to begin the DHCPDISCOVER process again. If DHCP does not have a lease, it will periodically try to obtain one without any intervention; dhcp lease renew simply provides way to manually force a lease renewal sooner than the next scheduled discovery attempt.

Interface Information

The bottom section of the interfaces menu will contain information about any ethernet or wireless interfaces detected in the device at bootup. Several pieces of information about each interface are displayed: the StarOS interface name (ether1, ether2, wpci1, etc.); the cable status, MAC address, and MTU of the interface; the number of IPs (statically) assigned to the interface; and the bridge group the interface is a member of. Selecting an interface will open a sub-menu with a number of configuration options specific to the interface type.

Ethernet Interfaces

For cable status, most Ethernet interfaces will display cable-ok or no-cable, similar to how a network card or switch will have a light that is on when connected to another network device and off when disconnected. The most notable exception is that devices with switched Ethernet ports, such as the MIPS-COMPEX WAR-1, will always show cable-ok, regardless of cable status.

Within the Ethernet interface configuration menu, there are five options.

The first option, IP assignments, opens a dialog box that allows you to configure the static IP addresses on the interface. If your interface should obtain its IP address dynamically, you should not define any addresses with IP assignments.

The second option, Ethernet configuration, allows you access to the Ethernet link settings dialog. For supported systems, Ethernet link settings allows you to configure the selected Ethernet port for auto-negotiation, 10Mbps, or 100Mbps, as well as to choose full- or half-duplex. Devices that have switched Ethernet ports do not support changing the Ethernet link settings.

The third option, interface features, allows you the configure whether the interface will listen for PPPoE requests, run the dhcp-autoauth service, or run the dhcp-client service. Selecting any of the options within the interface features menu will toggle the current status of the selected option, between "yes" and "no". Of note is that dhcp-client will not enable on an interface that is in a bridge group, and will stop running if it is enabled when the interface is added to a bridge group. In addition, if you enable dhcp-autoauth on an interface that is in a bridge group, it will answer any DHCP request received on any interface that is in the same bridge group. This can cause undesired behavior if improperly configured.

The fourth option, DHCP auto-auth configuration, allows you to configure or monitor the dhcp-autoauth service. The menu has two options, one for configuration, and one for active lease view. Configuration allows you to change the settings for dhcp-autoauth, which are discussed in detail on the article for the dhcp-autoauth service. Active lease view will display information about all leases provisioned by dhcp-autoauth since the system booted. This information will include the IP address, the MAC address it was assigned to, and the lease time remaining. Please note that if you reboot the system, any lease information will be lost, and leases will not repopulate until the devices using them renew their IP address.

The fifth option, beacon realtime traffic monitor, opens a beacon dialog for the selected interface. Beacon is a highly customizable traffic viewer that will give you detailed information about the traffic currently on the selected interface. Note that for interfaces in a bridge group, beacon will report all traffic across the bridge. More information about use and settings for beacon can be found in its article.

Wireless Interfaces

For cable status, wireless interfaces will report cable-ok as long as StarOS can detect the radio card. Given that card failures will often cause StarOS to reboot, you should never see no-cable for a wireless interface.

Within the wireless interface configuration menu, there are five options. The options are the same as the Ethernet interface configuration menu except the Ethernet configuration option is replaced with wireless configuration. As such, only the wireless configuration menu is discussed below. For information on the other options, refer to the above information about the Ethernet interface menu.

The wireless configuration option opens a sub-menu to configure the chosen wireless interface.