[Linux-cluster] Multicasting problems

[Alan A]

It has come to the point where our cluster production configuration has
halted due to the unexpected issues with multicasting on LAN/WAN.

The problem is that the firewall enabled on the switch ports does not
support multicasting, and between cluster nodes and the routers lays
firewall.

Nodes -> Switch with integrated Firewall devices -> Router

We are aware of problems encountered with Cisco switches and are trying to
clear some things. For instance in RHEL Knowledgebase article 5933 it
states:

*The recommended method is to enable multicast routing for a given vlan so
that the Catalyst will act as the IGMP querier. This consists of the
following steps:*

* *

   1.

   *Enabling multicast on the switch globally*
   2.

   *Choosing the vlan the cluster nodes are using*
   3.

   *Turning on PIM routing for that subnet*


My Questions:

Can we enable PIM routing on the Server NIC itself without using dedicated
network device? Meaning IGMP multicast would be managed by the NIC's itself
from each node, can the nodes awarnes function this way?

Any suggestions on how to get around firewall issue without purchesing
firewalls with routing tables?

Cisco switch model is: switch 6509 running 12.2(18) SXF and IGMP v2.



-- 
Alan A.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/linux-cluster/attachments/20090908/26dad2b4/attachment.htm>