Author Topic: A question about the Tera 5800, NICs, and how to direct traffic.  (Read 2498 times)

Zebraitis

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Hi folks.

I just picked up a 5800 chassis from ebay, put in drives, restored, upgraded and set up my new 40TB backup system.  I have to say I'm impressed with all the features.

Since I'm a home user, connecting this via Ethernet cable to my network had all the data (during backup) plow through my router, which caused some heartburn for my wife that was watching a video.

To solve this, I read the documentation and found how I can create a direct link to my home server, using the second NIC.

Here is my question:

If I set up NIC 1 to be part of my home network (192.168.15.xx) and NIC 2 to be the direct link to my server (169.254.71.xx) then how (If I plug both cables in) can I ensure that the backup data will go directly over NIC 2 and not through the router on NIC 1?

(... yes, home server has two NICs as well, configured in the same manner)

So:  Under the section on Port Trunking, is that the "Active-backup" setting?  It says "Only one NIC slave in the bond is active. A different slave becomes active if and only if the active slave fails."

(I can't choose some of the other options, as my home switches are not smart and do not support port trunking features)


Why I want to do this:

I've got the 5800 connected to a win10Pro 64 box.  I can Remote Desktop into that machine, and using NAS Navigator2 I can shut down the 5800.

With the box off, I can use the supported Wake-on-LAN feature to wake the 5800, if I have NIC 1 connected.

But, running the backup, I want to ensure that the traffic goes through NIC 2 (direct, and not through router).


Has anyone tried this?

I appreciate the input / responses.  Thanks!

Zebraitis

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Re: A question about the Tera 5800, NICs, and how to direct traffic.
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2017, 11:38:08 AM »
OK.

Since a likely response would be: "Why don't you try it and find out?"  ...  Here is what I see.


Squirrel:



First, when you have a direct connection to the PC / server (NIC 2)  and the network (NIC 1) you see TWO TerraServers in NAS Navigator 2.  They are both named the same.

Sure, because they both have a unique MAC, I can understand the two instances, but it would make more sense that NAS Navigator2 should recognize it as the same box, and then show to NICS connected.

Looks like some lazy programming there, as the MAC is only displayed in the lower section of the page, so by selecting the instances above you can see the MAC.

But enough about that.


Trying "Active-backup":

Since I have both NIC's connected, and they are both functional (tested by connecting to "Settings" on each IP address), I went into Settings / Network / Port Trunking  and selected "Active Backup" in the drop-down, and then selected both LAN PORTs

Note:  you can't select just one NIC here to be more primary than the other while still allowing both to be active, and that would have been a great way to resolve it...  but that's not the case.

Now, according to the notes "Only one NIC slave in the bond is active. A different slave becomes active if and only if the active slave fails."

But the question is:  How do I define that the NIC that I want IS the active one?  The challenge here is port trunking is created to increase reliability.  If one NIC or Cable or Port should fail, then the other is still golden.  It assumes that both cables are connected to the same network.



Nope... this just won't work.  The TeraStation shows now ONLY one IP address (NIC 1), and anything under network settings just shows a BOND for the NICS.  Thanks for playing, time to break the bond, unpair and try another idea.


Service Port Restriction

Now THIS looks promising...



While messing around in network settings, I saw Service Port Restrictions, which is not even discussed in the 252 page manual !!!  (yes, ONE instance, but that is a glancing blow of what another feature will or will not do to Service Port Restrictions)

It looks like this:



Now this allows me to choose what is accessible on which NIC, which could do what I want...  BUT ...  at this point, I will admit, I do not know which to allow or block.


Options:

For kicks, I have deselected   [ ] Backup on NIC 1 and rand a compare using my backup software (SyncBackFree).

Deselecting Backup didn't do it.  Looking at Win10 Task Manager / performance, I can see that the traffic is going over NIC 1 instead of NIC 2.


Limiting other options, I kept only the following allowed on NIC 1:  HTTP, HTTPS, SMB, "Detectable by Buffalo Software", TeraSearch, and Web Server.

That didn't work. 


I tried again, keeping it to only HTTP and HTTPS  (thinking that would still allow me to run setup)

With only those two items selected, NAS Navigator2 sees the TeraStation on my direct connected NIC 2 only (as expected).  I can still connect via browser to setup on NIC 1 (even though it is not seen by NAS Navigator2) from both my server and also from a wireless laptop on my network.


SUCCESS!

My backup traffic now goes only NIC 2.

I've accomplished my goal, but it feels like a really heavy-handed solution.  I should only need to turn off one or two of the options there. 


MY FINAL ASK:

If someone from Buffalo reads this and has a more elegant way of accomplishing this, or can suggest which items to deselect to do the task without overly crippling the functionality, I would appreciate your input.



Texturtle

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Re: A question about the Tera 5800, NICs, and how to direct traffic.
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2017, 10:12:16 AM »
I'm trying to understand your network first. What is your "home server"? How does backing up the server affect internet streaming traffic? Are you using an older wireless router?

Zebraitis

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Re: A question about the Tera 5800, NICs, and how to direct traffic.
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2017, 03:38:19 PM »
Glad you asked!

My home server is Win10Pro64 w/ 40TB disk space.   Let's just call it a grossly oversized desktop.

My home network is Gig capable, both in the switches, and in the router.  The router is a Linksys EA5800. 

When I run my backup, the Gig NIC on my motherboard seems to get traffic of nearly 900mb (which surprised me as my disk read was only 100MB).

... some overhead, eh?


And the spousal complaint was that while watching video, via wireless (connected to that router)  with data requested from that server, it was buffering... which is understandable.


However, while this may be of background interest, the question still remains:


IF   I have the TeraStation 5800 Ethernet cable direct connected to the "server" ( 5800 NIC 2 to server NIC 2 ) ...  as describe here:  http://en.faq.buffalo-global.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14140/p/31,33

THEN   what (on the 5800) should be selected on NIC 1, or deselected on NIC 2  to ensure that backup traffic goes from my home server machine directly to the TeraStation?


You will note:  I was able to direct that traffic in my second post...  but I was looking exactly for guidance on what should be selected or not.  Or, for that matter, if the way that I have done this is the correct way to do so... or if there is a different, better way.

Thanks!

Texturtle

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Re: A question about the Tera 5800, NICs, and how to direct traffic.
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2017, 03:48:22 PM »
First, since 100MB throughput is roughly a little over 800Mb, then 900Mb total isn't all that high if other things were going on at the same time.

I didn't realize from your first post that the video was streaming from the Windows system. In that case it makes sense that a backup running at the same time would limit video throughput. I had assumed that the video was from a streaming service such as Netflix.

Since Windows will almost always access file shares on the TeraStation using the SMB protocol then that should be the only one needed on NIC 2 for the backup to run. I would suggest mapping the drive using the IP address of the second NIC rather than TeraStation name. This should help ensure that the traffic is on the desired port.