NAME

freevrrpd — Virtual Redundancy Router Protocol Daemon

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

freevrrpd is an RFC2338/5798 compliant daemon. VRRP can be used with multiple interfaces as well as multiple VRIDs. For each VRID defined in the configuration file, freevrrpd creates a thread for managing a poll of one or multiple virtual IP addresses. The daemon currently only supports IPv4 but IPv6 is being developed.

When freevrrpd start, it reads /usr/local/etc/freevrrpd.conf file and then daemonizes itself. All of the options are defined in the config file.

freevrrpd is compatible with FreeBSD.

Functionality includes :

• Support of multiple VRIDs
• State announcements are multicast using the bpf(4) device
• Changing routes and IP in 3 seconds
• Sending gratuitous ARP requests to clean the ARP cache of all hosts listening hosts
• Election between different backup and master servers with differing priorities
• The same host can be both a SLAVE and MASTER at the same time for different VRIDs
• Automatic downgrade to BACKUP state if the MASTER returns to service
• Support of netmasks for virtual IP addresses

CONFIGURATION

freevrrpd reads its configuration data from /usr/local/etc/freevrrpd.conf, or the file specified with -f on the command line. The config file contains keyword-argument pairs, one per line. Each VRID definition is defined by the [VRID] keyword. Lines starting with '#' and empty lines are interpreted as comments.

The possible keywords and their meanings are as follows (note that keywords and arguments are case-sensitive):

serverid

This keyword is followed by a decimal number between 1 and 255 and represents the group identifier (Virtual Router Identifier).

interface

This keyword is followed by an interface name where multicast VRRP announcements of the specified serverid group will be sent.

useVMAC

Specifies whether Virtual MAC address (like 00:5E:00:...) is permitted. The default is “yes”. Note that disabling useVMAC is an RFC violation but may be necessary for some specific cases. If disabled, “sendgratuitousarp” must be enabled.

priority

This keyword can be followed by a decimal number between 0 to 255. A priority of 255 means a MASTER server. A priority between 0 to 254 is a BACKUP priority. If the VRID MASTER fails 254 becomes MASTER before 253, etc. A priority of 0 would be the last possible failover attempt.

addr

Specifies all Virtual IP addresses separated by commas of the corresponded VRID. A VIP syntax will be: “xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/yy” or “device:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/yy.” “xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx” representing the IP address and “yy” is a netmask in CIDR format. Device is an optional device where the VIP will be configured.

monitoredcircuits

Specifies whether NIC monitoring is enabled. This option uses a special ioctl for getting carrier, duplex, and health of the network card. The default is “yes”. Note that your NIC driver must support mii bus functionality. Some old drivers cannot use this option and must be disabled.

MCClearErrorsCount

This keyword can be followed by a decimal number that represent the number of concurrent valid checks (monitored circuits) before nberrors flag will be resetted at 0. The default is “3600”. Note that the default value means that 30 concurrent checks ok on a NIC by monitored circuits will reset the error counter for this NIC. If a value of

masterscript

This keyword can be followed by a script name with an absolute path and will be executed during MASTER transition state.

backupscript

This keyword takes the same argument as “masterscript” except that this script is executed during BACKUP transition state.

vridsdep

This keyword can be followed by a list of VRIDs in decimal format separated by commas. If the VRID becomes BACKUP, all VRIDs specified will be preempted and become BACKUP too.

password

This keyword can be followed by a password for authenticating VRRP packets on a specific VRID. Note that the password will be transmitted in clear with this method.

AHencryption

Not implemented yet

useIKE

Not implemented yet

presharedkey

Not implemented yet

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES

This utility does not quit properly if you use the -KILL signal. If you want to stop freevrrpd, use kill [PID] and not kill -9 [PID]. This will allow it to delete virtual IP addresses and routes properly on shutdown.

BUGS

freevrrpd is in active development. Please send bugs report and suggestions.

AUTHORS

George V. Neville-Neil ⟨gnn@FreeBSD.org⟩
Sebastien Petit ⟨spe@bsdfr.org⟩

HISTORY

Sebastien Petit ⟨spe@bsdfr.org⟩ was the original author.