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Static Configuration of MAC-IP Bindings

You can statically configure MAC-IP bindings on a logical device. With this feature, you can bind an IP address to one or more MAC address entries to enhance network management and improve communication between infrastructure hosts. This feature is helpful particularly in internet exchange point (IXP) networks, where participant customer edge (CE) devices are:

  • Widely recognized

  • Static, without transitioning to other provider edge (PE) devices

You can also establish a static link between an IP address and a MAC address for a logical interface inside a bridge domain or VLAN. When you provision a static MAC-IP entry on a PE device, the PE device sends three probes in an exponential backoff pattern. The PE device sends these probes approximately every 30 seconds until the entry is learned. The probe uses an all-zero sender IP address on the configured PE device.

When the PE device configured with the MAC-IP binding responds to the probe:

  1. The PE device learns the MAC-IP binding as static.

  2. The probe uses an EVPN Type 2 MAC advertisement route to propagate the MAC-IP bindings to remote PE devices.

  3. The remote PE device learns the MAC address of the CE device as dynamic.

If you want to deactivate the probing mechanism for learning MAC-IP bindings, you must configure the arp-nd-probe-disable statement at the [edit protocols l2-learning] hierarchy. Without probing, the PE device learns both the MAC address and the MAC-IP bindings from network traffic and uses EVPN to propagate the bindings.

Note:

If you've deployed a multihomed network, you must configure the same static MAC-IP binding on all PE devices in the corresponding ethernet segment identifier (ESI).

Configure static MAC-IP bindings

You can configure static MAC-IP bindings on your logical device with the following command and statements.

  • Statitcally configure MAC-IP bindings.

    • QFX Series:

      set vlans vlan-name switch-options interface interface-name static-mac-ip ip-address [MAC1 MAC2 … MACn]

    • MX Series (Virtual-Switch):

      set routing-instances routing-instance-name bridge-domains bridge-domain-name bridge-options interface interface-name static-mac-ip ip-address [MAC1 MAC2 … MACn]

    • MX Series (EVPN):

      set routing-instances routing-instance-name protocols evpn interface interface-name static-mac-ip ip-address [MAC1 MAC2 … MACn]
    Note:

    You can configure a maximum of eight MAC addresses for each static IP address.

    You can also configure the router and override bits for IPv6 entries. For example:

    QFX Series:

    set vlans vlan-name switch-options interface interface-name static-mac-ip ip-address [MAC1 MAC2 … MACn] <router | override>

  • Disable default probing when provisioning static MAC-IP entries.

    set protocols l2-learning arp-nd-probe-disable

  • Enable logging failed probing of static MAC-IP entries.

    set protocols l2-learning arp-nd-probe-failed-log

    You receive notifications via syslog if the probe fails to receive a response, providing useful feedback for troubleshooting.

  • Enable GARP/Unsolicited-NA for local and remote static entries.

    set protocols l2-learning garp-na-enable

    When learning a new MAC-IP binding on a local PE device, or learning a MAC-IP binding on a remote PE device via EVPN, an unsolicited GARP or NA message is sent to all connected access CE devices. This message enables the connected CE devices to update their ARP or ND caches.

  • Disable dynamic learning of MAC-IP entries.

    • QFX Series:

      set vlans vlan-name switch-options drop-unknown-mac-ip

    • MX Series (Virtual-Switch):

      set routing-instances routing-instance-name bridge-domains bridge-domain-name bridge-options drop-unknown-mac-ip

    • MX Series (EVPN):

      set routing-instances routing-instance-name protocols evpn drop-unknown-mac-ip