Proxmox and VLAN - Why so dumb yet so logic ?

In my recent network configuration on Proxmox, I encountered an issue that had me scratching my head. I was settuping vmbr5 on bond0, expecting to access the VLANs that were already declared in the network configuration. However, despite everything looking correct on the surface, I couldn't access the VLAN.

Below is an example of the initial setup I used:

I configured vmbr5 as a bridge on bond0, and tried to set up each vmbr to handle a specific VLAN, expecting them to work as intended. But despite this setup, I had no access to the VLANs.

The Solution

After some trial and error, I discovered the solution. The trick is to create vmbr5 on bond0, but then adapt the configuration of each vmbr to include as the bridge port: vmbr5.<VLAN number>.

Here’s how the configuration looked after applying the fix:

Now, each vmbr is correctly pointing to its corresponding VLAN via the vmbr5.<VLAN number> interface. With this setup, everything worked perfectly.

Final Thoughts

It’s one of those things that makes you say : "How dumb, yet so logical." It’s a solution that works, but it's not exactly intuitive. Sometimes, the most straightforward solutions can be the most elusive.

By organizing the network bridges in this way, Proxmox can correctly manage and route the VLAN traffic, and now I can access the VLANs as intended. While the solution is simple in hindsight, the lack of intuition in the initial approach makes this a learning point for anyone setting up VLANs in Proxmox.