Dell PowerVault ME4 Series Storage System Administrator’s Guide

Configuring network ports on controller modules

If you used the default 10.0.0.2/10.0.0.3 IPv4 addresses to access the guided setup, Dell recommends changing the IPv4 addresses to avoid an IP conflict if you have more than ME4 Series storage system on you network.

You can manually set static IP addresses for network ports on controller modules. Alternatively, the IP addresses can be set automatically using DHCP for IPv4 or Auto for IPv6, which uses DHCPv6 and/or SLAAC. When setting IP values, you can choose either IPv4 or IPv6 formatting for each controller. You can also set the addressing mode and IP version differently for each controller module and use them concurrently. For example, you could set IPv4 on controller module A to Manual and set IPv6 on controller module B to Auto.

When using DHCP mode, the system obtains values for the network port IP address, subnet mask, and gateway from a DHCP server if it is available. If a DHCP server is unavailable, current addressing is unchanged. You must have some means of determining what addresses have been assigned, such as the list of bindings on the DHCP server. When using Auto mode, addresses are retrieved from both DHCP and Stateless address auto-configuration (SLAAC). DNS settings are also automatically retrieved from the network.

Each controller has the following factory-default IP settings:

• IP address source: Manual
• Controller A IP address: 10.0.0.2
• Controller B IP address: 10.0.0.3
• IP subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
• Gateway IP address: 10.0.0.1

When DHCP is enabled, the following initial values are set and remain set until the system can contact a DHCP server for new addresses:

• Controller IP addresses: 169.254.x.x (where the value of x.x is the lowest 16 bits of the controller serial number)
• IP subnet mask: 255.255.0.0
• Gateway IP address: 10.0.0.0

169.254.x.x addresses (including gateway 169.254.0.1) are on a private subnet that is reserved for unconfigured systems and the addresses are not routable. Using these addresses prevents the DHCP server from reassigning the addresses and possibly causing a conflict where two controllers have the same IP address. As soon as possible, change these IP values to proper values for your network.

For IPv6, when Manual mode is enabled you can enter up to four static IP addresses for each controller. When Auto is enabled, the following initial values are set and remain set until the system can contact a DHCPv6 and/or SLAAC server for new addresses:

• Controller A IP address: fd6e:23ce:fed3:19d1::1
• Controller B IP address: fd6e:23ce:fed3:19d1::2
• Gateway IP address: fd6e:23ce:fed3:19d1::3

After you set the type of controller network ports to use, you can configure domain names using the Domain Name Service (DNS). DNS accepts IPv4 and IPv6 address formats. For more information about the DNS feature, see About configuring DNS settings.