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2023-01-26

MACVLAN - Pseudo Ethernet

Pseudo-Ethernet or MACVLAN interfaces can be seen as subinterfaces to regular ethernet interfaces. Each and every subinterface is created a different media access control (MAC) address, for a single physical Ethernet port. Pseudo-Ethernet interfaces have most of their application in virtualized environments,

By using Pseudo-Ethernet interfaces there will be less system overhead compared to running a traditional bridging approach. Pseudo-Ethernet interfaces can also be used to workaround the general limit of 4096 virtual LANs (VLANs) per physical Ethernet port, since that limit is with respect to a single MAC address.

Every Virtual Ethernet interfaces behaves like a real Ethernet interface. They can have IPv4/IPv6 addresses configured, or can request addresses by DHCP/ DHCPv6 and are associated/mapped with a real ethernet port. This also makes Pseudo-Ethernet interfaces interesting for testing purposes. A Pseudo-Ethernet device will inherit characteristics (speed, duplex, ...) from its physical parent (the so called link) interface.

Once created in the system, Pseudo-Ethernet interfaces can be referenced in the exact same way as other Ethernet interfaces. Notes about using Pseudo-Ethernet interfaces:

  • Pseudo-Ethernet interfaces can not be reached from your internal host. This means that you can not try to ping a Pseudo-Ethernet interface from the host system on which it is defined. The ping will be lost.
  • Loopbacks occurs at the IP level the same way as for other interfaces, ethernet frames are not forwarded between Pseudo-Ethernet interfaces.
  • Pseudo-Ethernet interfaces may not work in environments which expect a NIC (Network Interface Card) to only have a single address. This applies to:
    • VMware machines using default settings
    • Network switches with security settings allowing only a single MAC address
    • xDSL modems that try to learn the MAC address of the NIC

Configuration

Common interface configuration

/_include/interface-common-with-dhcp.txt

Pseudo Ethernet/MACVLAN options

set interfaces pseudo-ethernet <interface> source-interface <ethX>

Specifies the physical <ethX> Ethernet interface associated with a Pseudo Ethernet <interface>.

VLAN

/_include/interface-vlan-8021q.txt