You might have to migrate a LIF to a different port on the same node or a different node within the cluster, if the port is either faulty or requires maintenance. Migrating a LIF is similar to LIF failover, but LIF migration is a manual operation, while LIF failover is the automatic migration of a LIF in response to a link failure on the LIF’s current network port.

Before you begin

A failover group must have been configured for the LIFs.
The destination node and ports must be operational and must be able to access the same network as the source port.

About this task

BGP LIFs reside on the home-port and cannot be migrated to any other node or port.
You must migrate LIFs hosted on the ports belonging to a NIC to other ports in the cluster, before removing the NIC from the node.
You must execute the command for migrating a cluster LIF from the node where the cluster LIF is hosted.
A node-scoped LIF, such as a node-scoped management LIF, cluster LIF, intercluster LIF, cannot be migrated to a remote node.
When an NFSv4 LIF is migrated between nodes, a delay of up to 45 seconds results before the LIF is available on a new port.

To work around this problem, use NFSv4.1 where no delay is encountered.
You can migrate iSCSI LIFs on All-Flash SAN Array (ASA) platforms running ONTAP 9.11.1 or later.

Migrating iSCSI LIFs is limited to ports on the home-node or the HA partner.

You can also use ONTAP System Manager to migrate iSCSI LIFs.
iSCSI LIF failover for ASA platforms
If your platform is not an All-Flash SAN Array (ASA) platform running ONTAP version 9.11.1 or later, you cannot migrate iSCSI LIFs from one node to another node.

To work around this restriction, you must create an iSCSI LIF on the destination node. Learn about creating iSCSI LIFs.
If you want to migrate a LIF (network interface) for NFS over RDMA, you must ensure the destination port is RoCE capable. You must be running ONTAP 9.10.1 or later to migrate a LIF with the CLI, or ONTAP 9.12.1 to migrate using ONTAP System Manager. In ONTAP System Manager, once you have selected your RoCE capable destination-port, you must check the box next to Use RoCE ports to complete the migration successfully. Learn more about configuring LIFs for NFS over RDMA.
VMware VAAI copy offload operations fail when you migrate the source or the destination LIF. Learn about copy off-load:
- NFS environments
- SAN environments

The procedure you follow depends on the interface that you use—ONTAP System Manager or the CLI:

ONTAP System Manager

Use ONTAP System Manager to migrate a network interface

Steps

Select Network > Overview > Network Interfaces.
Select > Migrate beside the network interface you want to change.
Save your changes.

CLI

Use the CLI to migrate a LIF

Step

Depending on whether you want to migrate a specific LIF or all the LIFs, perform the appropriate action:

If you want to migrate…	Enter the following command…
A specific LIF	`network interface migrate`
All the data and cluster- management LIFs on a node	`network interface migrate-all`
All of the LIFs off of a port	`network interface migrate-all -node <node> -port <port>`

If you want to migrate…

Enter the following command…

A specific LIF

network interface migrate

All the data and cluster- management LIFs on a node

network interface migrate-all

All of the LIFs off of a port

network interface migrate-all -node <node> -port <port>

The following example shows how to migrate a LIF named datalif1 on the SVM vs0 to the port e0d on node0b:

network interface migrate -vserver vs0 -lif datalif1 -dest-node node0b -dest-port e0d

The following example shows how to migrate all the data and cluster-management LIFs from the current (local) node:

network interface migrate-all -node local