Multicast communication

[digerata]

I'm researching a few caching solutions for our apps and the major requirement of all of them is for multicast communication between cache nodes. Is this supported in AppLogic? If so, do all appliances in an app receive the multicast packets?

Thanks!

-Mike

[PeterNic]

Mike,

Currently the only interfaces that support multicast are the raw interfaces (i.e., external); terminal-based connections are unicast-only.

This usually does not present a problem; you will have to enable the external interface if the caching node appliances and assign IP addresses manually. I definitely recommend using non-routable IP ranges for those (unless you need them to be shared across the 'net, which I doubt). If you don't have such ranges assigned to your grid, please open a ticket.

Best regards,
-- Peter

[digerata]

That makes more sense, I was wondering how it would be done without blasting every appliance in the application with packets.

Just a quick refresher on this... That means I have to set the FC to 1 right? And then eth0 would be assigned the the non-routable IP?

Thanks!

[PeterNic]

ns I have to set the FC to 1 right? And then eth0 would be assigned the the non-routable IP?

No changes to the field engineering code (FEC) -- just assign an IP address from your non-routable IP range (192.168.x.y -- the x should be on your grid's dashboard, if not it is not assigned -- open a ticket).

So, in short:

ensure you have a non-routable IP range assigned to your grid (dashboard, bottom panel)
enable the external interface on the appliance class (in the class editor, Interfaces tab)
most likely, add a property for the IP address, subnet mask (no gateway/dns needed) (in the class editor, Properties tab) -- unless your appliance can read those from some config on a volume / connected network file system
in the appliance startup scripts, find the right place to set the external IP address to eth0 (or whatever the external interface device is; eth0 in all Redhat-type distros). See the appliance kit documentation and/or the VDS template or IN gateway appliances for examples on how to do that (nothing special -- just "ip add ...").
assign unique non-routable IPs to your appliance(s) via the properties (or whatever other mechanism you may be using).


Let me know if it worked.

(In the interest of time -- if something doesn't work and you need more immediate help to get this finished than a forum discussion permits, please open a ticket.)

Regards,
-- Peter