Huawei / Extreme Networks — Delivering L2 services over an L3 routed core

Back in 2014 at $dayjob, we built a network for the future (or so we thought!). This contained multiple Cisco 6500 chassis with Supervisor Engine 720 & WS-6748-GE line cards — all eBay specials.

Port Channels and trunk ports everywhere

This design — whilst good for ’99 started to cause issues with spanning tree, engineers missing the ‘add’ keyword when trunking VLANs and a whole host of other mistakes!

The choice was made to deploy stacked Extreme Networks X670-G2 core switches. We went crazy — deploying stacks everywhere.

OSPF and MPLS LDP was chosen for the IGP. Yay, no more trunk ports, no more VLANs spanned 1000k’s, no more spanning tree!

After a conference, it was then decided new PoPs would be lit up with Huawei! This caused a few challenges with one that I would like to go into today.

VPLS ALL THE THINGS

We started migrating services like crazy — every night for a few weeks, migration after migration. Packets dropped, routes changed, packet loss eliminated. Customers happy again!

It then begged the question — how do we connect Extreme Networks VPLS services with Huawei VSI services. They used the same protocols and the same RFCs, however they just wouldn’t talk!

After 3 engineers spent countless nights on this issue a single command (well, the lack there of) was to blame. Extreme Networks uses Ethernet based VPLS by default, where as Huawei uses VLAN tagged VPLS by default.

Let’s dive in shall we — straight to the configs

Extreme Networks

create vlan “NickVPLS”
configure vlan NickVPLS tag 154
configure vlan NickVPLS add ports 1:1 untagged
disable igmp snooping vlan “NickVPLS”create l2vpn vpls vp_NickVPLS fec-id-type pseudo-wire 154
configure l2vpn vpls vp_NickVPLS add service vlan NickVPLS
configure l2vpn vpls vp_NickVPLS mtu 9000
configure l2vpn vpls vp_NickVPLS add peer 2.2.2.2

Huawei

mpls l2vpn
 mpls l2vpn default martinivlan 154
 name NickVPLSmpls ldp remote-peer RTR1
 remote-ip 1.1.1.1
 
vsi vp_NickVPLS static
 pwsignal ldp
 vsi-id 154 # Must match with pseudo-wire ID on Extreme Networks
 peer 1.1.1.1
  traffic-statistics enable
 mtu 9000
 encapsulation ethernetinterface vlan 154
 l2 binding static vsi vp_NickVPLS static
 interface GigabitEthernet0/0/1
 description NickVPLS
 port link-type access
 port default vlan 154

As long as the IDs match and “encapsulation ethernet” is set on the Huawei, there’ll be no issues.

Let’s have a quick look at the resulting sessions.

Extreme Networks

RTR1 # show vpls "vp_NickVPLS"L2VPN Name   VPN ID  Flags   Services  Peer IP       State Flags
--------------------------------------------------------------------
vp_NickVPLS  154     EAX--L- NickVPLS   2.2.2.2      Up  C-----L

Huawei

[ES-18-1]dis vsi name vp_NickVPLSVsi                    Mem    PW    Mac       Encap     Mtu
Name                   Disc   Type  Learn     Type      Value State
--------------------------------------------------------------------
vp_NickVPLS            static ldp   unqualify ethernet  9000  up