Network Load Sharing

[Thomas Cameron]

On Thu, 2004-10-21 at 08:18 +1000, Ben Halicki wrote:
> Hi all,
>  
> I'm looking at setting up load sharing on a server using two NIC's,
> just wondering if anyone has any experience in this area?
>  
> The two common methods seem to be using TEQL or Bonding.  Which one
> would be the better method, or more common of the two?
>  
> Thanks in advance,
>  
> Ben.

Hi Ben -

Have a look at http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-3-
Manual/ref-guide/s1-modules-ethernet.html and
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-3-Manual/ref-
guide/s1-networkscripts-interfaces.html#S2-NETWORKSCRIPTS-INTERFACES-
CHAN for some good setup information.  I've set up bonding a number of
times and been very impressed with the performance.

I used a mode which isn't discussed in the two URL's above but is
discussed in the kernel source - balance-alb or 6.  Read the docs in the
kernel source under Documentation/networking/bonding.txt.  Mode 6 really
offers the best of all worlds - no special switch configuration is
required and it balances transmit and receive traffic pretty much
transparently.

My luck has been good with bonding.  I am afraid I have not done TEQL so
I can't speak to it.

Cheers,
Thomas