[K12OSN] Servers, K12LTSP, and workstation numbers, etc.

[James P. Kinney III]

On Mon, 2006-07-24 at 21:25 -0500, Jim Kronebusch wrote:
> > 2. Switch independent method: use adaptive load balancing with the 
> > bonding module. This requires that the kernel drivers for the NICs 
> > support changing the MAC address on the fly for each NIC. (NOTE** 
> > The cheap Hawking cards don't work with this as the r8169 driver 
> > must be unloaded to change the MAC address).
> > 
> > What all of the bonding method does is allow multiple Gb NICs to appear
> > as a single IP address so you have higher bandwidth for the clients.
> 
> Here is a howto for NIC bonding in Linux:
> 
> http://www.linux-corner.info/bonding.html

The best docs I've found so far are in the kernel sources in
Documentation/networking/bonding.txt. There isn't much difference
between the kernel text and the linked version, though.
> 
> For load balancing instead of failover simply change the "options" line in
> /etc/modprobe.conf to:
> 
> options bond0 mode=balance-alb

I did have problems with balance-alb using the r8169 driver for the
low-cost RealTek 1000T cards. 
> 
> This only takes minutes to setup and as far as I know has virtually no limit
> as to what and what type of NIC's you bond.  Of course, I am sure there is a
> practical limit.

The really nice thing is the NIC bonded as slaves can be of mixed
drivers and speeds. The bonding modules is very flexible. 
> 
> I don't have any specific data but I have been using teamed adaptors for 3
> years now on dumb dell switches.
> 

I have an older DLink Gbit switch that just refused to support the
balance-tlb or balance-alb modes (or any of the others for that
matter). 
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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