 
Ethernet TCP/IP Network
Computers on the SAN must be connected to an Ethernet network. Xsan controllers 
and clients use this network instead of the Fibre Channel network to exchange file 
system metadata.
If the computers on your SAN must communicate with directory servers, a corporate 
or campus intranet, or the Internet, connect each SAN client and metadata controller 
to two Ethernet networks: one private subnet for the SAN metadata and a separate 
connection for directory service, intranet, and Internet traffic. This is especially 
important if you plan to use the SAN for high-performance applications such as video 
editing.
IP Addresses
The client and metadata controller computers need static (fixed) IP addresses for 
Ethernet network connections. For the public intranet and Internet connection, you 
can enter each computer’s static IP address, subnet mask, router address, and DNS 
server address manually or configure a DHCP server to provide this information. If you 
want the DHCP server to provide IP addresses, it must always assign the same static IP 
address to each SAN computer. Don’t use DHCP to assign dynamic IP addresses to SAN 
devices.
For the SAN metadata network, the SAN computers should have static private 
(nonroutable) IP addresses (unless you can’t set up a separate, private Ethernet 
network for SAN metadata).
If you’re setting up new computers or computers on which you’ve just installed 
Mac OS X v10.6 or Mac OS X Server v10.6, you can have Xsan Admin assign and 
manage addresses for your private metadata network.
If you assign addresses yourself, use one of the following ranges of IP addresses on 
your private (nonrouted) metadata network:
Private address range
Associated subnet mask
Also specified as
10.0.0.0–10.255.255.255
255.0.0.0
10/8
172.16.0.0–172.31.255.255
255.240.0.0
172.16/12
192.168.0.0–192.168.255.255
255.255.0.0
192.168/16