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Arista EOS lab 4 of 20

MLAG with VARP and VRRP gateways

Join two Arista leaves into an MLAG pair so an access switch can dual-home with one LACP port-channel, then give the hosts an active-active VARP gateway and compare it with an active-standby VRRP gateway.

Run this lab

It needs Lite: its 5 nodes are set to 5 vCPU and 7,168 MB in total. That fits the free demo too.

In your workspace: Shared, then Arista EOS guided labs, then 04 - MLAG with VARP and VRRP gateways

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Level
Intermediate
Time
About 70 minutes
Nodes need
5 vCPU, 7,168 MB
Smallest plan
Lite

The scenario

Northwind's first rack has a pair of leaves, leaf1a and leaf1b, and an access switch acc1 cabled to both. Today acc1 can only use one uplink (spanning tree blocks the other) and the hosts' gateway lives on a single leaf. You will make the two leaves one logical switch with MLAG, bundle acc1's uplinks into one LACP port-channel that spans both leaves, and build redundant gateways: active-active VARP for VLAN 10 and classic VRRP for VLAN 20, so you can compare them.

DeviceInterfacePurposeAddress
leaf1aEthernet1-2 → Po10MLAG peer link to leaf1b–
leaf1aVlan4094MLAG peering (local interface)10.255.255.1/30
leaf1aEthernet3 → Po20 (mlag 20)to acc1 Ethernet1–
leaf1aVlan10 / Vlan20SVIs10.10.10.2/24 · 10.10.20.2/24
leaf1bEthernet1-2 → Po10MLAG peer link to leaf1a–
leaf1bVlan4094MLAG peering10.255.255.2/30
leaf1bEthernet3 → Po20 (mlag 20)to acc1 Ethernet2–
leaf1bVlan10 / Vlan20SVIs10.10.10.3/24 · 10.10.20.3/24
acc1Ethernet1-2 → Po20uplinks–
–GatewaysVLAN 10 VARP / VLAN 20 VRRP10.10.10.1 · 10.10.20.1
h10 · h20eth0hosts on acc1 Et3 (VLAN 10) / Et4 (VLAN 20)10.10.10.11/24 · 10.10.20.11/24

What you’ll practise

  • Build an MLAG peer link with a trunk group and a dedicated peer VLAN kept out of spanning tree
  • Configure and verify the MLAG domain (domain ID, local interface, peer address, peer link)
  • Dual-home a downstream switch with one LACP port-channel across both MLAG peers
  • Configure VARP so both peers answer for the same gateway IP and MAC
  • Configure VRRP with a deliberate master and compare it with VARP
  • Test failover by breaking one member link

The tasks

  1. Build the peer link
  2. Form the MLAG domain
  3. Dual-home acc1 with one port-channel
  4. Active-active gateway with VARP
  5. Active-standby gateway with VRRP
  6. Test the hosts and fail a link

The Lab Tasks pane has the scenario, these tasks, the checks to run, hints and the full solution.

Topology and devices

The network as it opens in EVE-NG, drawn from the lab’s own canvas, and the image each node runs.

Topology of MLAG with VARP and VRRP gateways5 nodes, 6 links. Every link is listed as text below the diagram.leaf1aleaf1bacc1h10h20Ethernet3eth0Ethernet4eth0Ethernet3Ethernet1Ethernet3Ethernet2Ethernet1Ethernet1Ethernet2Ethernet2
5 nodes, with the interface names each link uses.
Every link, as text
  • leaf1a Ethernet1 to leaf1b Ethernet1
  • leaf1a Ethernet2 to leaf1b Ethernet2
  • leaf1a Ethernet3 to acc1 Ethernet1
  • leaf1b Ethernet3 to acc1 Ethernet2
  • acc1 Ethernet3 to h10 eth0
  • acc1 Ethernet4 to h20 eth0
Nodes in MLAG with VARP and VRRP gateways, with the image each runs and the vCPU and RAM it’s set to
NodeDeviceImage in Add NodeSet to
leaf1aArista vEOSveos-4.33.1.1F1 vCPU, 2,048 MB
leaf1bArista vEOSveos-4.33.1.1F1 vCPU, 2,048 MB
acc1Arista vEOSveos-4.33.1.1F1 vCPU, 2,048 MB
h10Alpine Linuxclbalpinebase-alpine-base-3-20-31 vCPU, 512 MB
h20Alpine Linuxclbalpinebase-alpine-base-3-20-31 vCPU, 512 MB

How to open this lab

  1. Sign in to your workspace at lab.cloudlabbox.com.

  2. In File Manager, open Shared, then the folder Arista EOS guided labs.

  3. Open 04 - MLAG with VARP and VRRP gateways and start its nodes, then open Lab Tasks for the scenario and the steps.

The lab is read-only. You can start the nodes and configure the devices, but changes to the topology can’t be saved. To change it, rebuild it in your own folder.

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CloudLabBox is independent of Arista Networks. The lab follows exam topics and isn’t vendor training material; vendor names identify the exams and the images in the workspace.