Lightweight host multihoming

A multi-homing system comprising:

• one or more hosts;
• and
• a pair of network switches coupled to the one or more hosts, the pair of network switches have a shared virtual MAC address and a shared virtual Internet Protocol (IP) address, the shared virtual IP address is used as a default gateway for the multi-homed system, each network switch is configured to:
• either configure an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) or Neighbor Discovery (ND) entry, or receive, via a discovery protocol-based registration, an IP address to MAC address binding of a host attached to one or more ports, the host is to be multi-homed or singled-homed but in a same subnet as a multi-homed host, the network switch and another network switch of the pair of network switches have no state synchronization regarding the MAC address, the one or more ports are disabled for user traffic until the IP address to MAC address binding is received from the host by the discovery protocol;
• advertise via a routing protocol a host route for the host upon the one or more ports coming up;
• and
• process ARP or ND traffic from the host.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium or media comprising one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the steps for host multi-homing in a multi-homing system comprising one or most hosts to be performed comprising:

• configuring a network switch in the multi-homing system with a virtual MAC address that is the same as another network switch in the multi-homing system;
• configuring the network switch with a virtual Internet Protocol (IP) address that is the same as the another network switch, the virtual IP address is used as a default gateway for the multi-homed system;
• configuring either a static Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) or Neighbor Discovery (ND) entry, or configuring a discovery protocol-based registration for one or more ports on the network switch that are connected to a host that is to be multi-homed or a host that is singled-homed but in a same subnet as a multi-homed host, the one or more ports are disabled for user traffic until an IP address to MAC address binding is received from the host by the discovery protocol, the network switch and the another network switch have no state synchronization regarding the MAC address;
• advertising via a routing protocol a host route for the host;
• and
• processing ARP or ND traffic from the host.