Viewing and Editing IP Configuration Properties

The IP Configuration Properties page allows you to view the configuration details for a specific IP resource, as well as to modify a number of selected configuration items.

To access the IP Configuration Properties page, from the LifeKeeper GUI menu select Edit, then Resource. From the dropdown menu, select Properties. Then select the resource for which you want to view properties from the Resource list and the server for which you want to view that resource from the Server list. You can also access the properties page using the context-sensitive menu that appears when you right-click on a specific IP resource instance.

Below is an example of the properties page that will appear for an IP resource.

The resulting properties page contains four tabs. The first of those tabs, labeled IP Configuration, contains configuration information that is specific to IP resources. The remaining three tabs are available for all LifeKeeper resource types.

The IP Configuration tab displays the following information elements about the selected IP resource.

In the example above, there is no Ping List configured for this IP resource. When a Ping List is configured, the resulting properties page looks like the following example.

The Modify Ping List and Modify Source Address Setting buttons can be used to perform modifications to those configuration items, as described in the sections below.

Modifying the Ping List

For a description of the use and function of the Ping List for an IP resource, see the topic IP Resource Monitoring.

To create a Ping List for an IP resource, or to modify an existing list, click the Modify Ping List button on the IP Configuration properties page. This brings up a dialog window similar to the following example.

To add an address to the Ping List, type the address in the field next to the Add address: button, and push the button, as shown in the following two images. Note that the Add address: button is grayed out until you begin typing an address in the field.

To remove one or more addresses from the Ping List, click to select the addresses to be removed and click the Remove selected address(es) button. The Remove selected address(es) button is also grayed out until at least one address in the list has been selected.

To save the modified list, click Save List. This produces the following confirmation window.

Click Done to close the window, bringing you back to the IP Configuration properties page, where you can see the modified Ping List.

Important Notes About Using a Ping List

A Ping List for an IP resource is unique to the LifeKeeper system on which it is configured. If the IP resource has already been extended, the Ping List must be configured individually for each system on which the IP resource is defined. Ping List modifications can be made to an IP resource regardless of its state, so there is no need to perform switchovers of the IP resource in order to modify the Ping List on each system.

If there are multiple IP resources defined on the same logical subnet, all of those IP resources share a common Ping List. This is reflected in the IP Configuration properties page and the dialogs associated with modifying the Ping List, where the list is identified as being for the subnet associated with the IP resource.

Once a Ping List has been defined for an IP resource, all health checks for that resource will use the Ping List mechanism rather than the default broadcast ping mechanism. To revert back to the broadcast ping mechanism, you must delete the Ping List by removing all of the address entries in the list.

LifeKeeper performs no validation of the IP addresses entered into a Ping List, other than ensuring the validity of the formatting of the addresses. It is important that you ensure that the addresses you are entering actually exist on your network, can be pinged from the LifeKeeper systems, and are expected to be active at all times. You should not choose addresses that exist on the LifeKeeper systems themselves, because local pings to such addresses may be successful regardless of the actual status of the network interface on which the monitored IP resource is defined.

As mentioned above, the definition of a Ping List for an IP resource on a given system causes LifeKeeper to automatically use the Ping List mechanism rather than a broadcast ping for that resource and all other IP resources on the same subnet. It is not necessary to disable the broadcast ping mechanism using the NOBCASTPING setting described in the Adjusting IP Recovery Kit Tunable Values topic. However, if you have a configuration in which there are no systems available on the network to respond to a broadcast ping, you may have to use the NOBCASTPING=1 setting initially in order get the IP resource created, before you can then define a Ping List using the procedure described above. Once the Ping List has been created, you can revert back to the default NOBCASTPING=0 setting.

The contents of Ping List remains even after IP resource is deleted. Please note that the old Ping List setting will remain when IP resource with the old subnet address is created after deleting IP resource.

Modifying the Source Address Setting

The Source Address Setting for an IP resource determines whether the virtual IP address should be used as the source address for outgoing traffic onto the subnet associated with that IP resource, when the IP resource is in-service. This value defaults to No, which means that if the virtual IP address is on the same subnet as the primary IP address for the network interface, outgoing traffic onto the subnet will normally appear to be coming from that primary IP address. This usually has no effect on most configurations because the virtual IP address is generally used as an incoming connection point for clients. This means that all connections in which the virtual IP address is used are initiated as incoming traffic (in response packets, the destination address of the incoming traffic is used as the source address of the response packet, regardless of this setting).

However, there may be situations or configurations in which it is important for connections initiated from the LifeKeeper system to appear to be coming from the virtual IP address. By changing the Source Address Setting for the IP resource to Yes, when the IP resource is brought in-service, the TCP/IP routes on the system are modified such that this will be the case.

Note that if the virtual IP address is on its own distinct logical subnet from the permanent IP addresses on the system, for example, if the permanent IP address is 10.0.1.10/24 and the virtual IP address is on 10.1.0.10/24, it will not be affected by the source address setting. All outgoing traffic to 10.0.1.10/24 will be from the permanent IP address and all outgoing traffic to 10.1.0.10/24 will be from the virtual IP address. This setting does not apply in AWS.

Similarly, for EC2 route table configurations with a virtual IP outside the CIDR/subnet, the source address for outgoing traffic will be the permanent IP address regardless of the source address setting since that’s the only IP address configured in the subnet (/32 host route).

To modify the Source Address Setting for an IP resource, click the Modify Source Address Setting button on the IP Configuration properties page. This brings up a dialog window similar to the following example.

To change the setting, use the dropdown list to select the new value, either Yes or No.

Click Apply to save the new setting. This produces the following confirmation window.

Clicking Done will close the window and take you back to the IP Configuration properties page, where you can see the modified setting.

Important Notes About the Source Address Setting

The Source Address Setting for an IP resource is unique to the LifeKeeper system on which it is configured. If the IP resource is extended to another LifeKeeper system after the Source Address Setting has been modified, the setting will be copied to the other system as a part of the extension. However, if the IP resource has already been extended, the Source Address Setting modification must be made individually for each system on which the IP resource is defined.

It only makes sense for at most one IP resource on a given subnet to have its Source Address Setting set to Yes, because only a single IP address can actually be the source address for outgoing traffic onto the subnet. If there are multiple IP resources on the same subnet with a setting of Yes, the most recent resource to be brought in-service will override any others and become the source address for outgoing traffic onto the subnet.

The Source Address Setting only affects the local TCP/IP configuration when the IP resource is brought into service. So if the resource is already active when the setting is changed, the resource must be taken out-of-service and then back in-service before the change is reflected in the TCP/IP configuration.

The Source Address Setting only affects IPv4 addresses. This setting has no effect on an IPv6 address.

Modifying Restore and Recover

This feature allows a user to choose to Enable or Disable the default restore and recovery behavior for an existing IP address resource. If configured with the Enable option, the IP address will be brought in-service as normal and the regular monitoring and recovery process will occur. The Enable option is the current default behavior for an IP address restore.

If the Restore and Recover option is set to Disable, the resource will come in-service, but the IP address will not be brought active on the network or network adapter. This setting allows hierarchies in a WAN environment that depend on an IP to be brought in-service on the Disaster Recovery (DR) system where it may be difficult to configure the IP on the DR system due to the WAN configuration.

This setting can be selected after the resource is created and extended.

Important consideration for Active IP addresses (ISP): Setting the action to Disable on an ISP and active IP address does not take the active IP out of service.