Owner and non-owner VRRP

The owner controls the IP address of the virtual router and is responsible for forwarding packets sent to this IP address. The owner assumes the role of the master virtual router. Only one virtual router in the domain can be configured as owner. All other virtual router instances participating in this message domain must have the same VRID configured.

The most important parameter to be defined on a non-owner virtual router instance is the priority. The priority defines a virtual router’s selection order in the master election process. The priority value and the preempt mode determine the virtual router with the highest priority to become the master virtual router.

The base priority is used to determine the in-use priority of the virtual router instance as modified by any optional VRRP priority control policy. VRRP priority control policies can be used to either override or adjust the base priority value depending on events or conditions within the chassis.

For information about non-owner access parameters, see VRRP non-owner accessibility.

For owner virtual router instances, use the following commands to define the IP addresses that are advertised within VRRP advertisement messages:

For owner virtual router instances, after you define the IP addresses that are advertised within VRRP advertisement messages, this communicates the IP addresses that the master is advertising to backup virtual routers receiving the messages. The specified unicast-ipv4-address must be equal to one of the existing IP addresses in the parental IP interface (primary or secondary) or the backup command fails.

For non-owner virtual router instances, the backup command for IPv4 or IPv6 creates an IP interface IP address used for routing IP packets and communicating with the system, based on which access commands are enabled (ntp-reply, ping-reply, telnet-reply, and ssh-reply). The specified unicast-ipv4-address must exist on one of the local subnets of the parental IP interface. If the specified address does not exist on one of the local subnets of the parental IP interface or if the specified address uses the same IP address as the parental IP interface, the backup command fails.

The backup command must be executed successfully at least once before the virtual router instance can enter the operational state.

The new interface IP address created with the backup command assumes the mask and parameters of the corresponding parent IP interface IP address. The unicast-ipv4-address is only active when the virtual router instance is operating in the master state. When not operating as master, the virtual router instance acts as if it is operationally down. It does not respond to ARP requests made to unicast-ipv4-address, nor does it route packets received with its VRID-derived source MAC address. A non-master virtual router instance always silently discards packets destined for unicast-ipv4-address. One virtual router instance may only have one virtual router IP address from a parental local subnet. Multiple virtual router instances can define a virtual router IP address from the same local subnet, as long as each IP address is different.

Parent topic: VRRP components