Using Bridge Networking with Orka 3.5.0

Bridged networking allows Orka VMs running Orka 3.5.0 to connect directly to a physical network as a native device, receiving their own IP address from the network’s DHCP server. This enables direct communication with other network devices and services without the use of NAT, and is configurable automatically using Orka alongside your existing DHCP server.

Getting started:

To set up bridge networking in your Orka on-prem cluster, you will need to set the following variables in your host’s cluster.yml file:

1. vm_network_mode: bridge

   1. This is used to specify the network mode to your Orka services, and is added to your cluster.yml file. For instructions on how to set up this file, please refer to the Orka On-Prem: Getting Started documentation.

2. osx_node_vm_network_interface: <host-interface>

   1. host_interface is the interface on the host that the DHCP server is accessible on

   2. If the host interface is the same on every host, you can set this in the nodes.yml file

   3. If the host interface differs between hosts, this can be set per host in the hosts file

      Example:
      
      [arm-nodes]
10.221.188.30 osx_node_vm_network_interface=vlan0
10.221.188.31 osx_node_vm_network_interface=vlan1

VNC Access

When bridge mode is active, you will see a deploy output similar to the following example:

NAME IP SSH VNC SCREENSHARE STATUS
vm-2gdws 10.221.190.85 22 6000 5900 Running

SSH and screen sharing are accessible on port 22 and port 5900 on the VM IP (10.221.190.85). As VNC runs on the host, rather than the VM, VNS is accessible on port 6000 on the host IP. To obtain the host, enter the following commands:

1. orka3 vm list <vm name> -o wide to get the host name

2. orka3 node list <node name> -o wide to get the host IP

Technical requirements and limitations:

1. Users can configure Orka using either NAT or bridged networking mode.

2. It is not possible to run both networking modes at the same time.

3. Users cannot have two VMs running using different networking modes simultaneously.

4. All VMs must be deleted before switching the networking mode. If your Orka cluster is running NAT and needs to be switched to bridge networking, all VMs must be deleted beforehand.

Common issues:

Issue: The Orka VM has a private IP from the 192.168.64.0/24 CIDR

Solution:

1. vm_network_mode: bridge was set in the cluster.yml file

2. osx_node_vm_network_interface: <host_interface> was not set in the nodes.yml or the hosts file

3. Rerun the host configuration with osx_node_vm_network_interface: <host_interface> set to the correct value