topic Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology in General Topics

ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

Tobias_Moritz — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 06:08:32 GMT

Hello Community,

my team and I are using CP products for a very long time, so we just know how some things always worked, but this does not have to be true in modern versions 🙂

Todays question to you folks, is about the good old network topology regarding ClusterXL.

We are pretty sure that in the past, ClusterXL member interface names in Check Point network topology had to match the actual interfaces names in Gaia OS. Otherwise there were issues with ClusterXL. The name of the cluster interface did not matter, but the member interfaces names. I even found old reddit threads were this dependency was discussed in R80 days.

We recently saw a ClusterXL system running R81.20 T84 which had ClusterXL member interface names not matching Gaia OS interface names and we could not see ClusterXL problems.

I did not found any official documentation regarding this. What is your knowledge folks? Is this still a dependency?

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

ProxyOps — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 12:26:30 GMT

Even if the dependency is no longer there between ClusterXL and Gaia OS, it is heresy to NOT have matching names 😁

I did not see any SK that would indicate that this dependency has been desolved

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

_Val_ — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 11:53:56 GMT

Hi @Tobias_Moritz, any chance you can provide an example of those non-matching names?

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

Tobias_Moritz — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 12:06:20 GMT

gateway> show configuration interface set interface eth3 state on add interface eth3 vlan 400 [...] set interface eth3 state on set interface eth3 auto-negotiation on set interface eth3.400 state on set interface eth3.400 ipv4-address 10.aa.bb.2 mask-length 24 set interface eth3.400 ipv6-address 2001:aaaa:bbbb:cccc::2 mask-length 64

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

the_rock — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 12:13:51 GMT

Hey Tobias,

Interesting finding...personally, I had never seen that myself. Out of curiosity, what appliance is this?

Andy

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

Tobias_Moritz — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 13:03:14 GMT

No appliance, but bare metal open server (from CP HCL).

I asked the ops team: Interface mapping was correct at the time when "get interfaces [without topology]" was used years ago but later on, the interfaces were renumbered during reininstallation from ISO due to major upgrade. Reinstallation instead of CPUSE upgrade was done to get the new file system. They just forgot to update the topology and because ClusterXL does not throw errors about this missmatch, it was not detected until now, when someone saw it by accident.

Question is: Is the dependency between ClusterXL member interface names and Gaia interfaces names officially removed in modern versions? Or is it just a bug, that it works despite the missmatch? 🙂

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

the_rock — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 13:07:10 GMT

I would be also very curious to find out the official answer. I know this could also be confusing to some, so I really appreciate you bringing it up.

Andy

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

the_rock — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 17:30:01 GMT

Did yopu end up opening TAC case to verify this?

Andy

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

_Val_ — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 07:20:50 GMT

Could you please also provide output from "fw ctl iflists" & "cphaprob -a if" commands?

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

Tobias_Moritz — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 07:56:52 GMT

[Expert@gateway:0]# fw ctl iflists Usage: fw ctl command args... [Expert@gateway:0]# fw ctl iflist 1 : eth2 2 : eth0 3 : eth1 4 : eth3 6 : eth5 9 : eth3.792 10 : eth3.490 11 : eth3.909 12 : eth3.693 13 : eth3.590 14 : eth3.793 15 : eth3.402 16 : eth3.601 17 : eth3.600 18 : eth3.591 19 : eth3.401 20 : eth3.611 21 : eth3.603 22 : eth3.493 23 : eth3.692 24 : eth3.593 25 : eth3.592 26 : eth3.602 27 : eth3.491 28 : eth3.492 29 : eth3.400 30 : eth3.610 31 : eth3.494 [Expert@gateway:0]# cphaprob -a if CCP mode: Manual (Unicast) Required interfaces: 6 Required secured interfaces: 1 Interface Name: Status: eth2 UP eth0 UP eth1 (S) UP eth5 UP eth3.909 UP eth3.400 UP S - sync, HA/LS - bond type, LM - link monitor, P - probing Virtual cluster interfaces: 26 eth2 10.aa.bb.cc VMAC address: 00:1C:7F:00:AA:BB 2001:aaaa:bbbb:cccc::dd fe80::aa:0:0:abcd eth0 10.bb.aa.cc VMAC address: 00:1C:7F:00:AA:BB eth5 199.199.199.199 VMAC address: 00:1C:7F:00:AA:BB 2001:aaaa:bbbb:eeee::dd fe80::bb:0:0:abcd eth3.792 10.cc.bb.aa VMAC address: 00:1C:7F:00:AA:BB 2001:aaaa:bbbb:ffff::dd fe80::cc:0:0:abcd eth3.490 10.bb.cc.aa VMAC address: 00:1C:7F:00:AA:BB 2001:aaaa:bbbb:dddd::dd fe80::dd:0:0:abcd ...

Re: ClusterXL topology - member interface names - Gaia config vs. CP topology

Daniel_Hainich — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 06:15:47 GMT

for a long time my interface names were different. in gaia it was like bond1.vlan and in dashboard i named the interface dmz.vlan

within migration to maestro i found the sk that the names should match. but i never had problems with different names - or i never noticed.