Traffic does not pass through the GRE tunnel when Virtual MAC (VMAC) is enabled

Product

Cluster: XL
Version: R80.40 (EOS), R81 (EOS), R81.10 (EOS), R81.20
OS: Gaia
Platform: All
Last Modified: 2023-03-22

Symptoms

• Connections over the GRE tunnel fail when the cluster is configured with Virtual MAC (VMAC).
• These appear when ClusterXL debug is enabled (-m cluster + drop select (while fwha_dprint_io=1)):

fwha_select_should_drop_vmac: dropping packet to IP_OF_GRE_INERFACE (BOGUS_MAC_ADDRESS) on GRE_INTERFACE_NAME (GRE_INTERFACE_NUMER);

Example:

fwha_select_should_drop_vmac: dropping packet to 10.70.0.3 (45:00:00:4C:A6:B7) on gre20 (13);

Cause

When VMAC is enabled, the cluster layer only allows traffic where the destination MAC is the VMAC or the physical interface MAC address.

As a GRE decapsulated packet does not hold Layer 2 information (source MAC and destination MAC), the cluster layer does not accept these packets, and the connections fail.

Solution

This problem was fixed. The fix is included in:

• Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator for R81.20 starting from Take 8
• Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator for R81.10 starting from Take 93
• Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator for R81 starting from Take 82
• Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator for R80.40 starting from Take 196

If you choose not to upgrade, Check Point can supply a Hotfix. Contact Check Point Support to get a Hotfix for this issue.

A Support Engineer will make sure the Hotfix is compatible with your environment before providing the Hotfix.

For faster resolution and verification, please collect CPinfo files from the Security Management Server and Security Gateways involved in the case.

Hotfix installation instructions:

Refer to sk168597 - How to install a Hotfix.

NOTE

This solution has been verified for the specific scenario, described by the combination of Product, Version and Symptoms. It may not work in other scenarios.

Article Properties

Access Level: General
Status: Approved by TAC
Date Created: 2022-11-20
Last Modified: 2023-03-22