Create Multiple vLANs in a vRack on a Dedicated Server

These commands were executed under Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble Numbat).

First, establish an SSH connection to your server and run the following commands from the command line to install the VLAN package on your server:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install vlan

Next, load the 8021q kernel module:

sudo modprobe 8021q

To verify that the module is loaded:

user@server:~$ lsmod | grep 8021q
8021q                  40960  0
garp                   16384  1 8021q
mrp                    20480  1 8021q

Run the following command to ensure the modules are permanently loaded at boot:

sudo su -c 'echo "8021q" >> /etc/modules'

Create or edit the cloud.cfg configuration file to prevent automatic changes to your network configuration:

sudo nano /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99-disable-network-config.cfg

Add the following line:

network: {config: disabled}

Retrieve the network interface name and its MAC address:

ip a

Here the interface that we want to configure is eno2 with MAC address: d0:50:99:d6:6b:14.

Add the network configuration for this network interface and the VLAN information in the following file, ensuring it is placed directly beneath the version: 2 line. Replace the values with your own:

sudo nano /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml

network:
    version: 2
    ethernets:
        eno2:
            match:
                macaddress: d0:50:99:d6:6b:14
    vlans:
        vlan10:
            id: 10                      # VLAN ID    
            link: eno2                  # Interface name
            addresses:
            - 192.168.0.10/16
    ethernets:                    
        eno1:
            ...
            ...

For multiple configured VLANs, your network configuration should look like this:

Save and close the file, then run the following command:

sudo netplan apply

Use the following command to ensure the configuration has been applied correctly:

ip a

Before you begin, establish an SSH connection to your server and run the following command to load the 8021q kernel module:

sudo modprobe 8021q

To verify that the module is loaded:

user@server:~$ lsmod | grep 8021q
8021q                  40960  0
garp                   16384  1 8021q
mrp                    20480  1 8021q

Next, run the following command to ensure the modules are permanently loaded at boot:

sudo su -c 'echo "8021q" >> /etc/modules'

Retrieve the interface names and identify the private interface:

ip a

Next, create a subinterface configuration file for the VLAN in the main network configuration file.

In this example, the file is named ifcfg-eno2.10, where eno2 refers to the private network interface and 10 the VLAN ID.

sudo nano /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eno2.10

Add the following entries to the configuration file, ensuring you replace the values with your own:

TYPE=Vlan
PHYSDEV=eno2
VLAN_ID=10
BOOTPROTO=none
IPADDR=192.168.0.10
PREFIX=16
NAME=eno2.10
DEVICE=eno2.10
ONBOOT=yes
VLAN=yes

Save and exit the file.

To have multiple configured VLANs, you should have a new file created for each VLAN identifier:

Restart the network interface:

sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

The configuration below is based on Fedora 43.

Before you begin, establish an SSH connection to your server and run the following command to load the 8021q kernel module:

sudo modprobe 8021q

To verify that the module is loaded:

user@server:~$ lsmod | grep 8021q
8021q                  40960  0
garp                   16384  1 8021q
mrp                    20480  1 8021q

Run the following command to ensure the modules are permanently loaded at boot:

sudo su -c 'echo "8021q" >> /etc/modules'

To obtain the name of the private network interface:

ip a

In this example, the interface is called eno2. We will need to create a VLAN subinterface before assigning a private IP address to it.

Use the following command to create the VLAN interface:

sudo nmcli con add type vlan con-name <vlan-name> dev <parent-interface> id <vlan-id>.

Replace vlan-name with the name of the VLAN subinterface, parent-interface with the name of the private interface and vlan-id with the VLAN ID.

In this example:

sudo nmcli con add type vlan con-name eno2.10 dev eno2 id 10
Connection 'eno2.10' successfully added.

Assign a private IP address to the VLAN subinterface:

sudo nmcli con mod `<vlan-name>` ipv4.addresses <ip/prefix> ipv4.method manual

In this example:

sudo nmcli con mod eno2.10 ipv4.addresses 192.168.0.10/16 ipv4.method manual

Next, bring the up the VLAN subinterface:

sudo nmcli con up `<vlan-name>`.

In this example:

sudo nmcli con up eno2.10
# Connection successfully activated

Use the same commands for each VLAN interface you wish to add.

Once done, a configuration file for the VLAN interface is created. This file is located at /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ and follows the naming format vlan-name.nmconnection.

For multiple VLANs, multiple configuration files will be created:

• Overview: