This section describes the following virtual-interface management tasks:
The network interface new command creates a virtual interface. When you create a virtual interface, you must specify the following information:
The name of a node or virtual server on which the virtual interface is to be created.
The virtual interface's name.
The role of the network port with which the virtual interface is associated. Possible values are cluster, data, and mgmt (management).
The virtual interface's home node.
The virtual interface's home port or port aggregate.
The virtual interface's initial administrative status (up or down). The administrative status can differ from the operational status. For instance, if you specify the administrative status as up but a network problem prevents the virtual interface from functioning, the operational status remains as down.
The virtual interface's failover policy. The failover policy determines what happens to a virtual interface in the event that its port or port aggregate fails. Possible values include nextavail and priority. A failover policy of nextavail means that the virtual interface moves to the next available port in a round-robin fashion. A failover policy of priority means that the virtual interface moves to the port or port aggregate specified in its list of failover rules, according to the following algorithm:
If a port is available on the virtual interface's current node, the virtual interface moves to that port.
If a port is not available on the virtual interface's current node, the virtual interface tries the first port on its list of failover ports.
If the first port on the virtual interface's list of failover ports, the virtual interface tries the next port on its list of failover ports, and continues down the list until it finds an available port.
See “Creating a Failover Rule” for information about creating failover rules.
The failover policy for cluster ports is preassigned as nextavail and cannot be changed. Only the failover policy for data and management ports can be changed. The default policy for both data and management ports is nextavail.
The virtual interface's IP address.
The virtual interface's network mask.
The following example creates a virtual interface named dataif on a virtual server named vs1. The role of the network port is data. The virtual interface's home node is node1a and its home port is e0c. The virtual interface uses the priority failover policy, meaning that failover rules must be defined for it by using the network interface failover commands. The virtual interface has the IP address 172.19.7.1 and the netmask 255.255.255.0.
node::>network interface new -server vs1 -vif dataif -role data -home-node node1a -home-port e0c -failover-policy priority -address 172.19.7.1 -netmask 255.255.255.0