HSR and PRP HowTo guide

This document, being a non-exhaustive guide, outlines some practical examples of how to configure and use High-Availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR) and Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP).

For an overview of what HSR/PRP is and how it may be used, refer to:

Westermo RedBox supports the types hsr (HSR-SAN), prp (PRP-SAN), and hsr-prp (HSR-PRP). Set the RedBox type with the command type. The ports are automatically selected, as the RedBox has dedicated ports for A, B, and interlink. The ports are labeled as such on the front plate.

redbox:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> show
Enabled                : YES
Type                   : HSR
Mode                   : H
Supervision frames     : YES
Life check interval    : 2 s
Entry forget time      : 6 (640 ms)
Node reboot interval   : 500 ms
Proxy node forget time : 64 s
Node forget time       : 64 s
Port A                 : ethA
Port B                 : ethB
Multicast octet        : 00

Basic HSR setup

A basic HSR setup only requires creating an instance of the type.

redbox:/#> config hsr-prp 1
redbox:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> type hsr
redbox:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> leave
redbox:/#>

Figure 1 shows a basic HSR ring setup. The ring can be expanded with more HSR devices, and provides seamless failover on link failure.

            +---------+              
            |         |              
            |   SAN   |              
            |         |              
            +----+----+              
                 |                   
                 |                   
            +----I----+              
            |         |              
            | redbox  |              
      +-----A HSR-SAN B------+       
      |     |         |      |       
      |     +---------+      |       
      |                      |       
      |                      |       
      |     +---------+      |       
      |     |         |      |       
      +-----A redbox  B------+       
            | HSR-SAN |              
            |         |              
            +----I----+              
                 |                   
                 |                   
            +----+----+              
            |         |              
            |   SAN   |              
            |         |              
            +---------+              

Figure 1: Two SAN devices connected redundantly via two HSR-SAN RedBoxes.

HSR-PRP coupling setup

Figure 2 shows a setup with three of the possible RedBox modes. LAN A and LAN B may contain other PRP and non-PRP devices that have redundancy through the ring.

            +---------+              
            |         |              
            |   SAN   |              
            |         |              
            +----+----+              
                 |                   
                 |                   
            +----I----+              
            |redbox-1 |              
            |         |              
      +-----A PRP-SAN B------+       
      |     |         |      |       
      |     +---------+      |       
      |                      |       
+~~~~~~~~~~~~+       +~~~~~~~~~~~~+  
|            |       |            |  
|            |       |            |  
|   LAN A    |       |    LAN B   |  
|            |       |            |  
|            |       |            |  
+~~~~~~~~~~~~+       +~~~~~~~~~~~~+  
      |                      |       
      |                      |       
      |                      |       
+-----I---+             +----I----+  
|redbox-2 |             |redbox-3 |  
|         |             |         |  
| HSR-PRP A-------------A HSR-PRP |  
|         |             |         |  
+-----B---+             +----B----+  
      |                      |       
      |     +---------+      |       
      |     |redbox-4 |      |       
      +-----A         B------+       
            | HSR-SAN |              
            |         |              
            +----I----+              
                 |                   
                 |                   
            +----+----+              
            |         |              
            |   SAN   |              
            |         |              
            +---------+              

Figure 2: A PRP-SAN RedBox connects a SAN redundantly to an HSR ring, with another SAN device attached at the other side of the ring.

Configure the LAN ID of the HSR-PRP interlink ports with the respective LAN they connect to, and the Net ID (PRP ID) to the same for both because those A and B are associated with each other. The Net ID prevents frames from LAN A from being sent to LAN B, and vice versa.

A completely separate PRP network also connected to the ring must have another Net ID, as those frames may still enter other PRP networks. The standard specifies a total of 6 possible PRP networks in a single topology (values 1-6, HSR-SAN devices like redbox-4 use the value 0, 7 is reserved for future use).

Below is the configuration for each of the devices in Figure 2.

redbox-1:/#> config hsr-prp 1
redbox-1:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> type prp
redbox-1:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> leave
redbox-1:/#>
redbox-2:/#> config hsr-prp 1
redbox-2:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> type hsr-prp
redbox-2:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> lan-id A
redbox-2:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> prp-id 1
redbox-2:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> leave
redbox-2:/#>
redbox-3:/#> config hsr-prp 1
redbox-3:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> type hsr-prp
redbox-3:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> lan-id B
redbox-3:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> prp-id 1
redbox-3:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> leave
redbox-3:/#>
redbox-4:/#> config hsr-prp 1
redbox-4:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> type hsr
redbox-4:/config/hsr-prp-1/#> leave
redbox-4:/#>

Multiple rings

Each PRP LAN can connect to multiple rings for more redundancy.

+~~~~~~~+      +~~~~~~~+
| LAN A |      | LAN B |
| Net 1 |      | Net 1 |
+~~~~~~~+      +~~~~~~~+
    |    \    /    |
    |     \  /     |
    |      \/      |
    |      /\      |
    |     /  \     |
    |    /    \    |
+~~~~~~~+      +~~~~~~~+
|       |      |       |
|Ring 1 |      |Ring 2 |
|       |      |       |
+~~~~~~~+      +~~~~~~~+

Figure 3: PRP LANs connected to two separate rings.