To provision the network bridge for NSP VMs

Purpose

Perform the following steps on a physical host to create a network bridge for communication with the guest VMs.

Note: There is no requirement for the VM host station to be at the same RHEL OS release as the guest NSP VMs, which use RHEL 8. The configuration commands in the procedure are specific to RHEL 7, the predominantly deployed RHEL version in data centers that have not yet migrated to RHEL 8.

Note: It is strongly recommended that you perform the procedure using the local console or ILO interface. Using a local session ensures that the session remains active in the event that a misconfiguration or network disruption isolates the station.

Note: You require root user privileges on the station.

Note: Command lines use the # symbol to represent the RHEL CLI prompt for the root user. Do not type the leading # symbol when you enter a command.

Steps
 
1 

Ensure that the RHEL firewalld, iptables, and netfilter configurations allow traffic to and from the network bridge; see the RHEL documentation for information.

2 

If you are configuring the network bridge on a RHEL 8 station, perform the following steps.

  1. See the RHEL 8 documentation for information about configuring a network bridge and assigning an interface to the bridge.

  2. Go to Step 16.

3 

Log in as the root user on the station.

4 

Open a console window.

5 

Enter the following sequence of commands:

chkconfig NetworkManager off

chkconfig network on

systemctl stop NetworkManager

systemctl start network

6 

Open the following file using a plain-text editor such as vi:

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-interface

where interface is the physical network interface that the host is to use for connectivity as a bridge member, for example, eno1

7 

Add the following line:

BRIDGE=bridge_name

where bridge_name is the name to assign to the bridge

8 

Record the bridge_name value.

9 

Save and close the file.

10 

Create the following file using a plain-text editor such as vi:

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bridge_name

where bridge_name is the network bridge name specified in Step 7

11 

Enter the following as the file content:

TYPE=Bridge

BOOTPROTO=static

DEFROUTE=yes

DEVICE=bridge_name

ONBOOT=yes

IPADDR=n.n.n.n

PREFIX=mm

GATEWAY=g.g.g.g

DNS1=d.d.d.d

DOMAIN=domain

where

bridge_name is the network bridge name specified in Step 7

n.n.n.n is the IP address of interface specified in Step 6

mm is the interface subnet mask

g.g.g.g is the gateway IP address

d.d.d.d is a DNS IP address

domain is the DNS server FQDN

12 

Save and close the ifcfg-bridge_name file.

13 

Enter the following to instantiate the network bridge:

# brctl addbr bridge_name ↵

where bridge_name is the network bridge name

14 

Enter the following to restart the network service:

# systemctl restart network ↵

15 

Close the console window.

16 

After you create the required VMs for the NSP deployment, verify the bridge connectivity between the host and the guest VMs.

End of steps