Node-to-node bridge network issues

[eds89]

Hello,

I have two Proxmox nodes that are connected to my LAN via 10Gb interfaces. These are OVS Port members of an OVS bridge on each node, with an OVSIntPort with a VLAN tag on to allow the Proxmox nodes and the VMs it runs, to share that bridge/interface.
This all works great and I have no issues with VMs on the LAN.

However, I have pfSense nodes, one on each Proxmox node. I wanted to create a pfSync process between the two VMs that did not share the LAN network. I therefore setup an OVS bridge on each Proxmox node consisiting of the 2x onboard 1Gb interfaces. I connected these directly between the two Proxmox nodes.
The pfSense VMs then each have a VirtIO interface attached to that bridge with a VLAN ID of 5.

If I connect another VM on the same host to that same bridge, assign an appropriate IP, I can ping the local pfSense node. However, if I try to ping the pfSense machine on the other Proxmox node, it does not respond.
I know the firewall rules in pfSense are ok, as these were migrated from ESXi where it was working perfectly.

I am trying to understand where the issue might be here, and wonder if I need to add some VLAN settings to the OVS bridge between the two nodes?
I've tried this same bridge but removed the VLAN tags from the VM NICs but it made no difference.

Any guidance anyone can offer would be appreciated.

Many thanks
Eds

 

[eds89]

I can boil this question down to:
If I connect an OVS switch with one pnic, directly to a pnic and OVS switch on another host, why would my VMs not be able to communicate across this connection?

I understand that vlan_mode=trunk is the default behaviour for OVS switches, so whether I set or do not set a tag, it should just work?

 

[aaron]

you could add an IP address on the bridge itself for each host and check if that connection works.

 

[eds89]

you could add an IP address on the bridge itself for each host and check if that connection works.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I have managed to get this working now, and seems to have come down to a bad cable. Everything suggested the link was up, but there was no connectivity. After replacing the cable, everything immediately kicked into life as I expected it to