In October 2022 I described how you could build a VLAN router-on-a-stick topology with netlab. With the new features added in netlab release 1.4¹ we can do the same for VXLAN-enabled VLANs – we’ll build a lab where a router-on-a-stick will do VXLAN-to-VXLAN routing.

• S1 is a VXLAN-enabled layer-2 switch (no IP addresses on red or blue VLANs).
• VXLAN is enabled on S2, but it has no VLANs – it’s a pure IP transport device².
• ROS has two VXLAN-enabled VLANs. It has IP addresses on VLAN interfaces, so it can route between the two VLANs, resulting in connectivity between H1 and H2.

Our lab topology will be very similar to the VLAN router-on-a-stick topology.

We have to define the two VLANs and a VRF³:

vrfs:
  tenant:

vlans:
  red:
    vrf: tenant
  blue:
    vrf: tenant

We’ll use netlab groups to define most of the node parameters. Layer-2 switches need VLAN, VXLAN, and OSPF modules. They should not do any IP forwarding on the VLANs – vlan.mode has to be set to bridge.

groups:
  switches:
    members: [ s1, s2 ]
    module: [ vlan,vxlan,ospf ]
    vlan.mode: bridge

The router needs all the modules used by the layer-2 switches, and the VRF module. It also needs IP address on VLAN interfaces, so we’ll set vlan.mode to irb:

groups:
  routers:
    members: [ ros ]
    module: [ vlan,vxlan,ospf,vrf ]
    vlan.mode: irb

Finally, we need a few hosts, the list of nodes, and the list of links:

groups:
  hosts:
    members: [ h1, h2 ]
    device: linux

nodes: [ h1, h2, s1, s2, ros ]

links:
- h1:
  s1:
    vlan.access: red
- h2:
  s1:
    vlan.access: blue
- s1-s2
- s2-ros

Unfortunately, the above lab topology wouldn’t work:

• ROS (like S2) has no need for red or blue VLANs, so they are not added to the node data
• Because there’s no red or blue VLAN in ROS node data, the VLAN interfaces are not created on ROS.
• No VLAN interfaces ==> no routing.

Somehow we have to make sure the red and the blue VLAN are defined on ROS. We could add them to node data or to the routers group. I decided to use the latter approach; you can find the final topology file in the netlab-examples GitHub repository.

groups:
  routers:
    members: [ ros ]
    module: [ vlan,vxlan,ospf,vrf ]
    vlans:
      red:
      blue:

Now we’re ready to roll. Execute netlab up⁴ and start exploring. Want to use some other device instead of Arista cEOS? Add -d device to netlab up command, for example netlab up -d cumulus.

Haven’t installed netlab yet? Well, you should; in the meantime, here’s the Arista cEOS configuration for the VXLAN router-on-a-stick:

vlan 1000
   name red
!
vlan 1001
   name blue
!
vrf instance tenant
   rd 65000:1
!
management api http-commands
   no shutdown
!
management api gnmi
   transport grpc default
!
management api netconf
   transport ssh default
!
interface Ethernet1
   description ros -> s2
   mac-address 52:dc:ca:fe:05:01
   no switchport
   ip address 10.1.0.5/30
   ip ospf network point-to-point
   ip ospf area 0.0.0.0
!
interface Loopback0
   ip address 10.0.0.5/32
   ip ospf area 0.0.0.0
!
interface Management0
   ip address 192.168.121.105/24
   no lldp transmit
   no lldp receive
!
interface Vlan1000
   description VLAN red (1000) -> [h1,s1]
   vrf tenant
   ip address 172.16.0.5/24
   ip ospf area 0.0.0.0
!
interface Vlan1001
   description VLAN blue (1001) -> [h2,s1]
   vrf tenant
   ip address 172.16.1.5/24
   ip ospf area 0.0.0.0
!
interface Vxlan1
   vxlan source-interface Loopback0
   vxlan udp-port 4789
   vxlan vlan 1000 vni 101000
   vxlan vlan 1001 vni 101001
   vxlan vlan 1000 flood vtep 10.0.0.3
   vxlan vlan 1001 flood vtep 10.0.0.3
!
ip routing
ip routing vrf tenant
!
router ospf 1
   router-id 10.0.0.5
   max-lsa 12000
!
router ospf 100 vrf tenant
   router-id 10.0.0.5
   interface unnumbered hello mask tx 0.0.0.0
   max-lsa 12000

Want to run this lab on your own, or try it out with different devices? No problem:

• Install netlab
• Download the relevant containers or create Vagrant boxes
• Download the topology file into an empty directory
• Execute netlab up
• Enjoy! 😊