NVMe-TCP on SUSE/openSUSE - Network Configuration

Wicked Best Practices

Why Wicked:

• Default network manager in SLES/openSUSE

• Designed for enterprise environments

• Better integration with YaST

• Supports complex network configurations

• Consistent across SUSE ecosystem

Wicked architecture:

• wickedd - Main daemon

• wickedd-nanny - Policy manager

• Configuration in /etc/sysconfig/network/

Storage Network Configuration

Dedicated Interfaces

# Create configuration for storage interface
sudo tee /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-ens1f0 > /dev/null <<EOF
BOOTPROTO='static'
STARTMODE='auto'
IPADDR='10.100.1.101/24'
MTU='9000'
NAME='Storage Network 1'
# Prevent default route
DHCLIENT_SET_DEFAULT_ROUTE='no'
# NIC tuning
ETHTOOL_OPTIONS='rx 4096 tx 4096; -C rx-usecs 50 tx-usecs 50; -K tso on gso on gro on'
EOF

# Second storage interface
sudo tee /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-ens1f1 > /dev/null <<EOF
BOOTPROTO='static'
STARTMODE='auto'
IPADDR='10.100.2.101/24'
MTU='9000'
NAME='Storage Network 2'
DHCLIENT_SET_DEFAULT_ROUTE='no'
ETHTOOL_OPTIONS='rx 4096 tx 4096; -C rx-usecs 50 tx-usecs 50; -K tso on gso on gro on'
EOF

# Reload wicked configuration
sudo wicked ifreload all

# Verify
wicked ifstatus all

Bond Configuration for HA

# Create bond configuration
sudo tee /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-bond0 > /dev/null <<EOF
BOOTPROTO='static'
STARTMODE='auto'
IPADDR='10.100.1.101/24'
MTU='9000'
BONDING_MASTER='yes'
BONDING_SLAVE_0='ens1f0'
BONDING_SLAVE_1='ens1f1'
BONDING_MODULE_OPTS='mode=active-backup miimon=100 primary=ens1f0'
EOF

# Create slave configurations
sudo tee /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-ens1f0 > /dev/null <<EOF
BOOTPROTO='none'
STARTMODE='hotplug'
MTU='9000'
EOF

sudo tee /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-ens1f1 > /dev/null <<EOF
BOOTPROTO='none'
STARTMODE='hotplug'
MTU='9000'
EOF

# Reload configuration
sudo wicked ifreload all

Bond modes:

• mode=active-backup (mode=1) - Active-passive failover (recommended for storage)

• mode=802.3ad (mode=4) - LACP (requires switch support)

• mode=balance-xor (mode=2) - Load balancing

YaST Network Configuration

Using YaST for network setup:

# Launch YaST network module
sudo yast2 lan

# Or command-line
sudo yast lan edit id=0 bootproto=static ipaddr=10.100.1.101/24 mtu=9000

YaST advantages:

• GUI/TUI interface

• Validates configuration

• Integrates with other YaST modules

• Generates wicked configuration files

MTU Configuration

# Test MTU end-to-end
ping -M do -s 8972 <storage_portal_ip>

# Set MTU in wicked config (shown above)
# Or temporarily
sudo ip link set ens1f0 mtu 9000