networking n stuff

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

DHCP Relay in VxLAN BGP EVPN

Do you really need to make any special configurations when you implement VxLAN EVPN and you need to configure DHCP Relay? All Cisco's guides say you do..but as I found out recently it's not exactly like that. I'm going to address several scenarios here so we'll find out where we need special tweaks for DHCP Relay to work and where we don't. All tested on a real N9Ks + NX-OSv.

When Default Config Is Fine

Every Cisco's guide on this topic starts with saying that he challenge initially is that every Leaf has the same anycast gateway configured, so we can't really use this address as source address for relay and we need unique address (such as loopback). In fact, there's nothing stopping from using non-unique address as source. Personally I think there's still more convenient to use unique address wherever it's possible and it's certainly how I recommend to have it done - for several reasons like troubleshooting and security, but still, there is a possibility to make it work another way. Also keep in mind using unique address is the only recommended validated design by Cisco. Still, this configuration works as well, so if you can't use unique addresses for some reason (like you're in the middle of migration to your new fancy VxLAN EVPN fabric and you suddenly realize all your DHCP servers are running Windows Server 2012 (which will require a several kilometers (depending of your fabric size) of a duct tape to work with new DHCP options for EVPN which are a must if you use unique loopback addresses) this might be a way to go.

So, in this part we're going to consider scenario where you are fine with using non-unique Anycast Gateway address as source address.
How will response packet be routed back to the correct Leaf? Let's consider these possible scenarios:

1. DHCP Server is external network located somewhere behind BGW. BGW is a L3 only, so there's no L2 VNIs configured on it, only L3 VNIs for Routing. We assume client and server are within the same VRF.