7.2.2. Network Interfaces

Network Interfaces

Fig. 7.19 Network Interfaces

This page allows for the configuration of each ethernet port or Network Interface Card (NIC) installed in the Recorder. You will see one entry on this page for each installed NIC. Depending on your NexLog DX-Series Recorder and purchased options, you will have between two and ten NICs available for configuration. For each NIC, you have the following options to configure:

7.2.2.1. Type

Static, DHCP, SPAN, Bind, or Disable: This determines how the recorder will acquire its Network settings for the specified NIC such as IP address and Netmask.

  • Static: If the type is set to Static, NexLog DX-Series Configuration Manager will allow you to manually enter all the networking settings for this NIC. This information should be provided by your Network Administrator. The Address field is the IP Address being assigned to the recorder. Netmask, gateway, and broadcast should all be configured as well. The broadcast address is typically the last IP address available in the subnet.

  • DHCP: If DHCP is selected, the data will be automatically received from a DHCP Server on the Network. If No valid DHCP server is configured on your network, this option will result in no IP address being assigned to the recorder and it will be inaccessible via the network. Note that since remote clients such as MediaWorks and MediaAgent, as well as Web Browsers need to know the IP address of the recorder in order to connect and interact with it, if DHCP is to be used, it is important to configure your DHCP server to be aware of the MAC Address of the recorder and to always assign the same known IP Address to that MAC. If DHCP causes a dynamic IP Address change, clients will no longer know what address to connect to in order to reach the recorder and other recorder functionality may not function as expected.

  • SPAN: The third possible option is SPAN. A SPAN port is a port on a network switch or router that is “transmit only”. When a recorder’s NIC is connected to a SPAN port, it cannot send any traffic to that port, only receive any traffic that has been configured on the router to be forwarded to the SPAN port. SPAN ports are used for passive monitoring and recording of VoIP or RoIP traffic.

  • Bind: If at least two NICs are present in your NexLog DX-Series Recorder, you will also have a “BIND” option in Type. If BIND is selected on two Ethernet devices, they will be bound together into a single network link which is configured as a unit, rather than separately. This feature is sometimes known as “NIC Bonding” or “Link Aggregation” and is used to provide Network redundancy.

  • Disable: Disables this NIC.

7.2.2.2. Alias

Alias is a field that maps a memorable name to the internal name of each NIC. It defaults to eth0, eth1… eth6 for each installed NIC. This is so you don’t have to remember the real internal name, like “enp7s0,” when configuring other parts of the Recorder, like RTP recording boards.

7.2.2.3. Gateway

It is recommended that gateway be set only on one NIC, and 0.0.0.0 entered in the rest. If you need a more complex configuration of gateway settings, use the Advanced Network Configuration option.

7.2.2.4. IPv6 Settings

NexLog DX-Series can be connected to an IPv6 network for the purposes of using the recorder from IPv6 enabled clients. Administering the recorder through the configuration client and accessing recordings via MediaWorks DX are supported over IPv4 and IPv6, however some functionality such as recording voip traffic and receiving IP Metadata feeds are currently only available via IPv4.

IPv4 uses 32-bit values made up of four 8-bit numbers, like 193.3.68.249; IPv6 uses 128-bit values made up of eight 16-bit numbers represented in hexidecimal, for example: 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334

Note that IPv6 Netmask is just an integer (the number of bits in the netmask) as opposed to the IP-like format in IPv4. So the netmask in IPv4 will commonly be 255.255.255.254, in IPv6 this case would be 1.

Autoconfigure enables “IPv6 Stateless Autoconfiguration”. It is similar to DHCP in IPv4 in that the recorder will automatically get the IP, netmask, and gateway populated, but unlike DHCP, no DHCP server is required; IPv6 stack is capable of figuring out this information by looking at its network peers. DHCPv6 (DHCP for IPv6) is not supported by NexLog DX-Series.

7.2.2.5. Diagnostics

This button opens a scrollable window showing the output of the command line tools ifconfig, ethtool and lldp. These are useful for troubleshooting network issues.

Network Interfaces Expanded to Show IPv6 Settings and Diagnostics

Fig. 7.20 Network Interface Expanded to show IPv6 Settings and Diagnostics

7.2.2.6. Advanced Networking Configuration

Standard network configuration such as default gateways can be configured on the Network Interfaces page. This file is for adding additional configuration not covered above. The format of the lines in this file is identical to Linux networking commands.

Note

The changes made to this file will not take effect until the next reboot.

Caution

Use caution when editing this file, as mistakes may make the recorder unreachable.

Valid commands are “route”, “ifconfig”, and “iptables”

Example:

route add -net 10.14.0.0 netmask 255.255.0.0 gw 10.14.47.254 eth1

7.2.2.7. Considerations When Using a Static IP Address

When using static IP addresses, the network parameters must be set manually from the front panel. There are some things you must consider when setting these parameters:

  • The IP address must not be in use by another device. If it is, then the address may not be accepted, and even if it is accepted, operation will be unreliable.

  • If you need the recorder to communicate with other devices on the network, such as an administration client, an NTP server, or the Internet, then the devices must either be on the same subnet, or on a different subnet that can be reached over a gateway. In the latter case, the address of the gateway must be added to the recorder.

  • The subnet is determined by the Netmask setting. Your subnet is the result of an AND operation between the 4-octet net mask and the 4-octet IP address. See the Sample Net Mask and Subnet Settings table below for common examples of netmasks. Your facility’s network administrator should be able to help you in assigning the proper IP address, netmask, broadcast address, and if necessary, gateway address for the recorder. If the recorder will be sending email, one or more DNS servers must be entered on the System Identification page.

Table: Sample Net Mask and Subnet Settings

Network/Subnet

IP Address

Netmask

Broadcast

192.168.0.0/16

192.168.1.3

255.255.0.0

192.168.255.255

192.168.1.0/24

192.168.1.1

255.255.255.0

192.168.1.255

7.2.2.8. Dual NICs with Bonding Operation

When configured with NIC bonding, the dual network interface devices provide failover operation. Because they share the same IP address, if one of the devices or its connection should fail, the other device will maintain the network connection. Each bonded pair can only be made from two physical NICs, but there can be two separate bonded NIC pairs per system.

To configure two network devices with NIC bonding, change the Type to Bind on each device, then save.

Once you have bound two devices together, they will be presented as a single device, set to DHCP (and can be configured for Static or SPAN), with an additional menu for Bond Type. This will let you configure the kind of device bonding used.

Note: After you have configured the network interface devices for NIC bonding operation, if you change them back to separate operation, you will then have to reboot the recorder for the changes to take effect.

There are three types of NIC Binding available. Be sure to select the type that matches the requirements of your network’s configuration.

  • 0 (balance-rr): Round-robin policy: Transmit packets in sequential order from the first available slave through the last. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance.

  • 1 (active-backup): Active-backup policy: Only one slave in the bond is active. A different slave becomes active if, and only if, the active slave fails. The bond’s MAC address is externally visible on only one port (network adapter) to avoid confusing the switch. This mode provides fault tolerance.

  • 2 (balance-xor): Transmit based on (source MAC address XOR’ed with destination MAC address) (modulo slave count). This selects the same slave for each destination MAC address. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance.

  • 4 (802.3ad): IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic link aggregation. Creates an aggregation group that shares the same speed and duplex settings. Utilizes all adapters in the active aggregator according to the 802.3ad specification. This option requires that the attached peer also has 802.3ad configured.

Note

Although there are no known limitations to splitting bonds between seperate devices, we recommended bonded pairs remain on same device by default.