Create IP Pools Dedicated to Fencing

Creating an IP pool is the second step in configuring fenced networks. See Network Fencing for an overview of the entire process.

The external IP addresses for each VM inside the fence come from an IP pool you configure for this exclusive purpose. External IP addresses are those used to access the fenced VMs from outside the fenced network. The external address of the router is set either from the same IP Pool, or from a DHCP server on the external network, depending on the configuration of the service.

Specify a name for the IP pool that will allow you to easily identify it as designed for use with fencing.

Follow the steps below to create an IP pool.

1. Select the IP Pools tab.
2. Click Add.
3. On the first page of the wizard, enter a name for the IP pool and choose the datacenter where it will be active, then click Next.
4. On the Networks page, check all of the networks for which the pool will be available, then click Next.

   Each network can be assigned to one IP pool for each datacenter.

5. On the Network Properties page, configure the networking details for the pool, then click Next.

   In addition to assigning the IP address, these values will also be configured on deployed VMs (Subnet Mask, Gateway, DNS Suffix, Primary DNS, Secondary DNS).

6. On the IP Addresses page, enter the addresses that will comprise the IP pool, then click Next.
7. Enter a single IP address in the From field; use the From and To fields to define ranges. Click Add to add your choices to the pool. IP addresses in a pool don't have to be contiguous.
8. On the Alerting page, enter the Free IP Threshold, then click Next.

   This number determines when Commander will trigger notifications about the amount of remaining free IP addresses in the pool.

9. On the Summary page, review your choices, then click Finish.

You can create more than one IP pool to use with fencing, but we recommend that you complete the steps required to get network fencing functional with a single IP pool, deployment destination, and service before introducing more complexity to your configuration.

What's next

Continue to Create Deployment Destinations for Fenced Networks.

For more information on using IP pools, see Configure and Manage IP Pools.