[K12OSN] nic bonding -what mode are you using

[James P. Kinney III]

The mode used depends on the need and the hardware. Some nics can't
handle having the MAC changed without a reset so that will cause
problems. Some modes require switches to support the bond type. Because
the outbound traffic (server to clients) is higest, I have used TLB -
mode 5 - with switches that do not support link aggregation. For the
ones that do support it (also known as IEEE 802.3ad) I use mode 4. I
also use a miimon value of 100 so every 100 milliseconds the system
polls for link status and will fail-over to another in the bond if the
tested one is no longer connected. I do not know if the missing port
becomes active again if the process will reattach back to the bond.
Something else to test...

mode= — Specifies one of four policies allowed for the bonding module.
Acceptable values for this parameter are: 

      * 0 — Sets a round-robin policy for fault tolerance and load
        balancing. Transmissions are received and sent out sequentially
        on each bonded slave interface beginning with the first one
        available. 
        
      * 1 — Sets an active-backup policy for fault tolerance.
        Transmissions are received and sent out via the first available
        bonded slave interface. Another bonded slave interface is only
        used if the active bonded slave interface fails. 
        
      * 2 — Sets an XOR (exclusive-or) policy for fault tolerance and
        load balancing. Using this method, the interface matches up the
        incoming request's MAC address with the MAC address for one of
        the slave NICs. Once this link is established, transmissions are
        sent out sequentially beginning with the first available
        interface. 
        
      * 3 — Sets a broadcast policy for fault tolerance. All
        transmissions are sent on all slave interfaces. 
        
      * 4 — Sets an IEEE 802.3ad dynamic link aggregation policy.
        Creates aggregation groups that share the same speed and duplex
        settings. Transmits and receives on all slaves in the active
        aggregator. Requires a switch that is 802.3ad compliant. 
        
      * 5 — Sets a Transmit Load Balancing (TLB) policy for fault
        tolerance and load balancing. The outgoing traffic is
        distributed according to the current load on each slave
        interface. Incoming traffic is received by the current slave. If
        the receiving slave fails, another slave takes over the MAC
        address of the failed slave. 
        
      * 6 — Sets an Active Load Balancing (ALB) policy for fault
        tolerance and load balancing. Includes transmit and receive load
        balancing for IPV4 traffic. Receive load balancing is achieved
        through ARP negotiation. 
        
        Shamelessly copied from :
        http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/ref-guide/s1-modules-ethernet.html#S2-MODULES-BONDING
        
        
On Sun, 2008-06-29 at 08:27 -0500, Barry R Cisna wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> Could we get some postings on what nic bonding mode people here are
> using in the k12ltsp enviornment along with what nics and what kinda
> gotchas you run into when setting up your particular bonding scheme?
> Etherchannell or IEEE802.3ad.
> Just curious. Maybe also post if you done any actual throughput
> tests,even if very primitive. What kind of switches you use,and what you
> done to the switches config to enhance your bonding setup. I read a post
> sometime back someone had six nics per server bonded! Talk about super
> geekie,,:)
> 
> Take Care,
> Barry Cisna
> 
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> 
-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC                           
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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