TRA IP and DNS Options

You have various options available for networking Traffic Routing Agents (TRAs), including whether to use IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, and whether the TRA resolves DNS names before each TRA connection is established.

Switch All TRA Components Between IPv4 and IPv6 Addresses

You can use the default-domain-name-address-family[0|4|6] option in the parameters section of the tra_config_network_topology.xml file to require that all TRA components use either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. This makes it easy to switch all TRA servers between address types at the same time. However, this parameter applies only to the domain-name parameters below without a specific IPv4 or IPv6 selector. For example, this parameter applies to p2p-domain-name, but not to p2p-domain-name4 or p2p-domain-name6.

You have these options:
  • default-domain-name-address-family=0 — The default. The TRA communicates with the first DNS IP address on the DNS lookup table, either IPv4 or IPv6.
  • default-domain-name-address-family=4 — The TRA communicates with the first DNS IPv4 address on the DNS lookup table.
  • default-domain-name-address-family=6 — The TRA communicates with the first DNS IPv6 address on the DNS lookup table.

Restrict TRA High Availablity Nodes to Specific IP Address Types

You can also control the IP address version for a specific network plane using the options below. TRA servers are implemented in high availability (HA) pairs, and each pair must have a mgmt address entry for the management network plans, and a p2p or mcast address entry configured for the data network plane.

The p2p options include:
  • p2p-address — The default. Allows network communication using either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.
  • p2p-domain-name — Selects the first IPv4 or IPv6 address in the DNS lookup table. This option is affected by the default-domain-name-address-family parameter.
  • p2p-domain-name4 — Only allows network communication using IPv4 IP addresses. Selects the first IPv4 address in the DNS lookup table.
  • p2p-domain-name6 — Only allows network communication using IPv6 IP addresses. Selects the first IPv6 address in the DNS lookup table.
The mcast-address options include:
  • mcast-address — Specifies a static IP address to use for the multicast network plane. Use this or the domain-name options below.
  • mcast-domain-name — Selects the first IPv4 or IPv6 address resolved by DNS. This option is affected by the default-domain-name-address-family parameter.
  • mcast-domain-name4 — Selects the first IPv4 address resolved by DNS. Only allows network communication using IPv4 IP addresses.
  • mcast-domain-name6 — Selects the first IPv6 address resolved by DNS. Only allows network communication using IPv6 IP addresses.
Each HA node must also have a mgmt node address parameter to specify the management network plane that MATRIXX environment uses. The mgmt-address options include:
  • mgmt-address — Specifies a static IP address to use for the data network plane.
  • mgmt-domain-name — The default. Selects the first IPv4 or IPv6 address resolved by DNS. This option is affected by the default-domain-name-address-family parameter.
  • mgmt-domain-name4 — Selects the first IPv4 address resolved by DNS. Allows only network communication using IPv4 IP addresses.
  • mgmt-domain-name6 — Selects the first IPv6 address resolved by DNS. Allows only network communication using IPv6 IP addresses.
The TRA-PROC and TRA-PUB configuration servers require IP address or one of the domain-name parameters to identify the MATRIXX Engine processing or publishing servers that they load balance among. You have these options for specifying IP addresses:
  • address — Selects the server using the static IP address entered.
  • domain-name — Selects the first IPv4 or IPv6 address resolved by DNS. This option is affected by the default-domain-name-address-family parameter.
  • domain-name4 — Selects the first IPv4 IP address resolved by DNS. Allows only network communication using IPv4 IP addresses.
  • domain-name6 — Selects the first IPv6 IP address resolved by DNS. Allows only network communication using IPv6 IP addresses.

For details on the network planes required, see the discussion about network requirements.

Choose Whether to Re-resolve DNS Names for Pool Nodes

By default, TRA domain names are resolved every time before the TRA attempts to connects to a node. You can change this for individual TRA VSs by using the VS vsopt "tcp-dn-dns-resolution-refresh[1|0]" parameter. If the node specifies the address parameter, that static IP address is always used. If instead the node specifies a domain_name, DNS domain name resolution is controlled by the tcp-dn-dns-resolution-refresh[1|0] parameter. For details, see the discussion about configuring Traffic Routing Agent.