CARP(4)                   OpenBSD Programmer's Manual                  CARP(4)

NAME
     carp - Common Address Redundancy Protocol

SYNOPSIS
     pseudo-device carp

DESCRIPTION
     The carp interface is a pseudo-device which implements and controls the
     CARP protocol.  carp allows multiple hosts on the same local network to
     share a set of IP addresses.  Its primary purpose is to ensure that these
     addresses are always available, but in some configurations carp can also
     provide load balancing functionality.

     A carp interface can be created at runtime using the ifconfig carpN
     create command or by setting up a hostname.if(5) configuration file for
     netstart(8).

     To use carp, the administrator needs to configure at minimum a common
     virtual host ID (VHID) and virtual host IP address on each machine which
     is to take part in the virtual group.  Additional parameters can also be
     set on a per-interface basis: advbase and advskew, which are used to con-
     trol how frequently the host sends advertisements when it is the master
     for a virtual host, and pass which is used to authenticate carp adver-
     tisements.  Finally carpdev is used to specify which interface the carp
     device attaches to.  If unspecified, the kernel attempts to set it by
     looking for another interface with the same subnet.  These configurations
     can be done using ifconfig(8), or through the SIOCSVH ioctl.

     carp can also be used in conjunction with ifstated(8) to respond to
     changes in CARP state; however, for most uses this will not be necessary.
     See the manual page for ifstated(8) for more information.

     Additionally, there are a number of global parameters which can be set
     using sysctl(8):

     net.inet.carp.allow         Accept incoming carp packets.  Enabled by de-
                                 fault.

     net.inet.carp.preempt       Allow virtual hosts to preempt each other.
                                 Disabled by default.

     net.inet.carp.log           Make carp log state changes, bad packets, and
                                 other errors.  May be a value between 0 and 7
                                 corresponding with syslog(3) priorities.  The
                                 default value is 2, which limits logging to
                                 changes in CARP state.

LOAD BALANCING
     carp provides two mechanisms to load balance incoming traffic over a
     group of carp hosts: ARP balancing and IP balancing.

     Which one to use mainly depends on the network environment carp is being
     used in.  ARP balancing has limited abilities for load balancing the in-
     coming connections between hosts in an Ethernet network.  It only works
     for clients in the local network, because ARP balancing spreads the load
     by varying ARP replies based on the source MAC address of the host send-
     ing the query.  Therefore it cannot balance traffic that crosses a
     router, because the router itself will always be balanced to the same
     virtual host.

     IP balancing is not dependent on ARP and therefore also works for traffic
     that comes over a router.  This method should work in all environments
     and can also provide more fine grained load balancing than ARP balancing.
     The downside of IP balancing is that it requires the traffic that is des-
     tined towards the load balanced IP addresses to be received by all carp
     hosts.  While this is always the case when connected to a hub, it has to
     play some tricks in switched networks, which will result in a higher net-
     work load.

     A rule of thumb might be to use ARP balancing if there are many hosts on
     the same network segment and to use IP balancing for all other cases.

     To configure load balancing one has to specify multiple carp nodes using
     the carpnodes option.  Each node in a load balancing cluster is repre-
     sented by at least one "vhid:advskew" pair in a comma separated list.
     carp tries to distribute the incoming network load over all configured
     carpnodes.  The following example creates a load balancing group consist-
     ing of three nodes, using vhids 3, 4 and 6:

           # ifconfig carp0 carpnodes 3:0,4:0,6:100

     The advskew value of the last node is set to 100, so that this node is
     designated to the BACKUP state.  It will only become MASTER if all nodes
     with a lower advskew value have failed.  By varying this value throughout
     the machines in the cluster it is possible to decide which share of the
     network load each node receives.  Therefore, all carp interfaces in the
     cluster are configured identically, except for a different advskew value
     within the carpnodes specification.

     See the EXAMPLES section for a practical example of load balancing.

   ARP BALANCING
     For ARP balancing, one has to configure multiple carpnodes and choose the
     balancing mode arp.

     Once an ARP request is received, the CARP protocol will use a hashing
     function against the source MAC address in the ARP request to determine
     which carpnode the request belongs to.  If the corresponding carpnode is
     in master state, the ARP request will be answered, otherwise it will be
     ignored.

     The ARP load balancing has some limitations.  Firstly, ARP balancing only
     works on the local network segment.  It cannot balance traffic that
     crosses a router, because the router itself will always be balanced to
     the same carpnode.  Secondly, ARP load balancing can lead to asymmetric
     routing of incoming and outgoing traffic, thus combining it with
     pfsync(4) requires special care, because this can create a race condition
     between balanced routers and the host they are serving.  ARP balancing
     can be safely used with pfsync if the pf(4) ruleset translates the source
     address to an unshared address on the outgoing interface using a NAT
     rule.  This requires multiple CARP groups with different IP addresses on
     the outgoing interface, configured so that each host is the master of one
     group.

     ARP balancing also works for IPv6, but instead of ARP the Neighbor Dis-
     covery Protocol (NDP) is used.

   IP BALANCING
     IP load balancing works by utilizing the network itself to distribute in-
     coming traffic to all carp nodes in the cluster.  Each packet is filtered
     on the incoming carp interface so that only one node in the cluster ac-
     cepts the packet.  All the other nodes will just silently drop it.  The
     filtering function uses a hash over the source and destination address of
     the IPv4 or IPv6 packet and compares the result against the state of the
     carpnode.

     IP balancing is activated by setting the balancing mode to ip.  This is
     the recommended default setting.  In this mode, carp uses a multicast MAC
     address, so that a switch sends incoming traffic towards all nodes.

     However, there are a few OS and routers that do not accept a multicast
     MAC address being mapped to a unicast IP.  This can be resolved by using
     one of the following unicast options.  For scenarios where a hub is used
     it is not necessary to use a multicast MAC and it is safe to use the ip-
     unicast mode.  Manageable switches can usually be tricked into forwarding
     unicast traffic to all cluster nodes ports by configuring them into some
     sort of monitoring mode.  If this is not possible, using the ip-stealth
     mode is another option, which should work on most switches.  In this mode
     carp never sends packets with its virtual MAC address as source.  Stealth
     mode prevents a switch from learning the virtual MAC address, so that it
     has to flood the traffic to all its ports.  Please note that activating
     stealth mode on a carp interface that has already been running might not
     work instantly.  As a workaround the VHID of the first carpnode can be
     changed to a previously unused one, or just wait until the MAC table en-
     try in the switch times out.  Some layer 3 switches do port learning
     based on ARP packets.  Therefore the stealth mode cannot hide the virtual
     MAC address from these kind of devices.

     If IP balancing is being used on a firewall, it is recommended to config-
     ure the carpnodes in a symmetrical manner.  This is achieved by simply
     using the same carpnodes list on all sides of the firewall.  This ensures
     that packets of one connection will pass in and out on the same host and
     are not routed asymmetrically.

EXAMPLES
     For most scenarios it is desirable to have a well-defined master,
     achieved by enabling the preempt option.  Enable it on both host A and B:

           # sysctl net.inet.carp.preempt=1

     Assume that host A is the preferred master and 192.168.1.x/24 is config-
     ured on one physical interface and 192.168.2.y/24 on another.  This is
     the setup for host A:

           # ifconfig carp0 192.168.1.1 vhid 1
           # ifconfig carp1 192.168.2.1 vhid 2

     The setup for host B is identical, but it has a higher advskew:

           # ifconfig carp0 192.168.1.1 vhid 1 advskew 100
           # ifconfig carp1 192.168.2.1 vhid 2 advskew 100

   LOAD BALANCING
     In order to set up a load balanced virtual host, it is necessary to con-
     figure one carpnodes entry for each physical host.  In the following ex-
     ample, two physical hosts are configured to provide balancing and
     failover for the IP address 192.168.1.10.

     First the carp interface on Host A is configured.  The advskew of 100 on
     the second carpnode entry means that its advertisements will be sent out
     slightly less frequently and will therefore become the designated backup.

           # ifconfig carp0 192.168.1.10 carpnodes 1:0,2:100 balancing ip

     The configuration for host B is identical, except the skew is on the
     carpnode entry with virtual host 1 rather than virtual host 2.

           # ifconfig carp0 192.168.1.10 carpnodes 1:100,2:0 balancing ip

     If ARP balancing or a different mode of IP balancing is desired the
     balancing mode can be adjusted accordingly.

SEE ALSO
     sysctl(3), inet(4), pfsync(4), hostname.if(5), ifconfig(8), ifstated(8),
     netstart(8), sysctl(8)

HISTORY
     The carp device first appeared in OpenBSD 3.5.

BUGS
     If load balancing is used in setups where the carpdev does not share an
     IP in the same subnet as carp, it is not possible to use the IP of the
     carp interface for self originated traffic.  This is because the return
     packets are also subject to load balancing and might end up on any other
     node in the cluster.

     If an IPv6 load balanced carp interface is taken down manually, it will
     accept all incoming packets for its address.  This will lead to duplicat-
     ed packets.

OpenBSD 4.7                     March 12, 2010                               4
