Network Card IP Teaming/Bonding
 

Hi,

My name is Leslie. I have recently got a new Server,
HP DL380 (Rack Mount). It is running on Red Hat Linux Enterprise 4.0 . It has dual ethernet ports

I was wondering if it is possible to do IP Teaming/Bonding
like in Windows Server 2003. I've tried searching the net but have not found any "How To's on it. Would appreciate your advice.


Thanks you so much.

KS LESLIE
Ipoh Specialist Hospital
Malaysia

Linux Magazine February 2007 has a case study on bonding on page 62. Also, the kernel documentation has a bonding.txt file with about 33 pages of information. Of course, your switches need to support this as well. You will need to read their manuals as well.

we have channel bonding on several hp blades in production (only for failover).
check out this link for brief explanation:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/e...NTERFACES-CHAN

my setup:
===============

in /etc/modprobe.conf, i have:

alias bond0 bonding
options bond0 mode=1 miimon=100 primary=eth2

NOTE: the gigabit adapters we have are eth2 and eth3 (there are 4 onboard nics - we don't use the firs two). these are Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5703 using the tg3 modules

then, in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, i have the following files:

===================
ifcfg-bond0
===================
IPADDR=a.b.c.d
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
DEVICE=bond0
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
USERCTL=no
BONDING_MASTER=yes

===================
ifcfg-eth2
===================
DEVICE=eth2
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
USERCTL=no

===================
ifcfg-eth3
===================
DEVICE=eth3
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
USERCTL=no


you can either reboot to test the setup or manually load the modules with the parameters (as specified in modprobe.conf) and restart your network.

hth.