2828 lines
		
	
	
		
			112 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Plaintext
		
	
	
	
	
	
			
		
		
	
	
			2828 lines
		
	
	
		
			112 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Plaintext
		
	
	
	
	
	
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		Linux Ethernet Bonding Driver HOWTO
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		Latest update: 27 April 2011
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Initial release : Thomas Davis <tadavis at lbl.gov>
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Corrections, HA extensions : 2000/10/03-15 :
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  - Willy Tarreau <willy at meta-x.org>
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  - Constantine Gavrilov <const-g at xpert.com>
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  - Chad N. Tindel <ctindel at ieee dot org>
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  - Janice Girouard <girouard at us dot ibm dot com>
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  - Jay Vosburgh <fubar at us dot ibm dot com>
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Reorganized and updated Feb 2005 by Jay Vosburgh
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Added Sysfs information: 2006/04/24
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  - Mitch Williams <mitch.a.williams at intel.com>
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Introduction
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============
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	The Linux bonding driver provides a method for aggregating
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multiple network interfaces into a single logical "bonded" interface.
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The behavior of the bonded interfaces depends upon the mode; generally
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speaking, modes provide either hot standby or load balancing services.
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Additionally, link integrity monitoring may be performed.
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	The bonding driver originally came from Donald Becker's
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beowulf patches for kernel 2.0. It has changed quite a bit since, and
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the original tools from extreme-linux and beowulf sites will not work
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with this version of the driver.
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	For new versions of the driver, updated userspace tools, and
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who to ask for help, please follow the links at the end of this file.
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Table of Contents
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=================
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1. Bonding Driver Installation
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2. Bonding Driver Options
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3. Configuring Bonding Devices
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3.1	Configuration with Sysconfig Support
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3.1.1		Using DHCP with Sysconfig
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3.1.2		Configuring Multiple Bonds with Sysconfig
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3.2	Configuration with Initscripts Support
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3.2.1		Using DHCP with Initscripts
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3.2.2		Configuring Multiple Bonds with Initscripts
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3.3	Configuring Bonding Manually with Ifenslave
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3.3.1		Configuring Multiple Bonds Manually
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3.4	Configuring Bonding Manually via Sysfs
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3.5	Configuration with Interfaces Support
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3.6	Overriding Configuration for Special Cases
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3.7 Configuring LACP for 802.3ad mode in a more secure way
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4. Querying Bonding Configuration
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4.1	Bonding Configuration
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4.2	Network Configuration
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5. Switch Configuration
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6. 802.1q VLAN Support
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7. Link Monitoring
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7.1	ARP Monitor Operation
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7.2	Configuring Multiple ARP Targets
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7.3	MII Monitor Operation
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8. Potential Trouble Sources
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8.1	Adventures in Routing
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8.2	Ethernet Device Renaming
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8.3	Painfully Slow Or No Failed Link Detection By Miimon
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9. SNMP agents
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10. Promiscuous mode
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11. Configuring Bonding for High Availability
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11.1	High Availability in a Single Switch Topology
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11.2	High Availability in a Multiple Switch Topology
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11.2.1		HA Bonding Mode Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
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11.2.2		HA Link Monitoring for Multiple Switch Topology
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12. Configuring Bonding for Maximum Throughput
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12.1	Maximum Throughput in a Single Switch Topology
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12.1.1		MT Bonding Mode Selection for Single Switch Topology
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12.1.2		MT Link Monitoring for Single Switch Topology
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12.2	Maximum Throughput in a Multiple Switch Topology
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12.2.1		MT Bonding Mode Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
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12.2.2		MT Link Monitoring for Multiple Switch Topology
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13. Switch Behavior Issues
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13.1	Link Establishment and Failover Delays
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13.2	Duplicated Incoming Packets
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14. Hardware Specific Considerations
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14.1	IBM BladeCenter
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15. Frequently Asked Questions
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16. Resources and Links
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1. Bonding Driver Installation
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==============================
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	Most popular distro kernels ship with the bonding driver
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already available as a module. If your distro does not, or you
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have need to compile bonding from source (e.g., configuring and
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installing a mainline kernel from kernel.org), you'll need to perform
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the following steps:
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1.1 Configure and build the kernel with bonding
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-----------------------------------------------
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	The current version of the bonding driver is available in the
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drivers/net/bonding subdirectory of the most recent kernel source
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(which is available on http://kernel.org).  Most users "rolling their
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own" will want to use the most recent kernel from kernel.org.
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	Configure kernel with "make menuconfig" (or "make xconfig" or
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"make config"), then select "Bonding driver support" in the "Network
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device support" section.  It is recommended that you configure the
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driver as module since it is currently the only way to pass parameters
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to the driver or configure more than one bonding device.
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	Build and install the new kernel and modules.
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1.2 Bonding Control Utility
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-------------------------------------
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	 It is recommended to configure bonding via iproute2 (netlink)
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or sysfs, the old ifenslave control utility is obsolete.
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2. Bonding Driver Options
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=========================
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	Options for the bonding driver are supplied as parameters to the
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bonding module at load time, or are specified via sysfs.
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	Module options may be given as command line arguments to the
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insmod or modprobe command, but are usually specified in either the
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/etc/modprobe.d/*.conf configuration files, or in a distro-specific
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configuration file (some of which are detailed in the next section).
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	Details on bonding support for sysfs is provided in the
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"Configuring Bonding Manually via Sysfs" section, below.
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	The available bonding driver parameters are listed below. If a
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parameter is not specified the default value is used.  When initially
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configuring a bond, it is recommended "tail -f /var/log/messages" be
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run in a separate window to watch for bonding driver error messages.
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	It is critical that either the miimon or arp_interval and
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arp_ip_target parameters be specified, otherwise serious network
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degradation will occur during link failures.  Very few devices do not
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support at least miimon, so there is really no reason not to use it.
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	Options with textual values will accept either the text name
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or, for backwards compatibility, the option value.  E.g.,
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"mode=802.3ad" and "mode=4" set the same mode.
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	The parameters are as follows:
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active_slave
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	Specifies the new active slave for modes that support it
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	(active-backup, balance-alb and balance-tlb).  Possible values
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	are the name of any currently enslaved interface, or an empty
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	string.  If a name is given, the slave and its link must be up in order
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	to be selected as the new active slave.  If an empty string is
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	specified, the current active slave is cleared, and a new active
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	slave is selected automatically.
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	Note that this is only available through the sysfs interface. No module
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	parameter by this name exists.
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	The normal value of this option is the name of the currently
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	active slave, or the empty string if there is no active slave or
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	the current mode does not use an active slave.
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ad_actor_sys_prio
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	In an AD system, this specifies the system priority. The allowed range
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	is 1 - 65535. If the value is not specified, it takes 65535 as the
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	default value.
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	This parameter has effect only in 802.3ad mode and is available through
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	SysFs interface.
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ad_actor_system
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	In an AD system, this specifies the mac-address for the actor in
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	protocol packet exchanges (LACPDUs). The value cannot be NULL or
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	multicast. It is preferred to have the local-admin bit set for this
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	mac but driver does not enforce it. If the value is not given then
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	system defaults to using the masters' mac address as actors' system
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	address.
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	This parameter has effect only in 802.3ad mode and is available through
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	SysFs interface.
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ad_select
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	Specifies the 802.3ad aggregation selection logic to use.  The
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	possible values and their effects are:
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	stable or 0
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		The active aggregator is chosen by largest aggregate
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		bandwidth.
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		Reselection of the active aggregator occurs only when all
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		slaves of the active aggregator are down or the active
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		aggregator has no slaves.
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		This is the default value.
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	bandwidth or 1
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		The active aggregator is chosen by largest aggregate
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		bandwidth.  Reselection occurs if:
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		- A slave is added to or removed from the bond
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		- Any slave's link state changes
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		- Any slave's 802.3ad association state changes
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		- The bond's administrative state changes to up
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	count or 2
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		The active aggregator is chosen by the largest number of
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		ports (slaves).  Reselection occurs as described under the
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		"bandwidth" setting, above.
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	The bandwidth and count selection policies permit failover of
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	802.3ad aggregations when partial failure of the active aggregator
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	occurs.  This keeps the aggregator with the highest availability
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	(either in bandwidth or in number of ports) active at all times.
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	This option was added in bonding version 3.4.0.
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ad_user_port_key
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	In an AD system, the port-key has three parts as shown below -
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	   Bits   Use
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	   00     Duplex
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	   01-05  Speed
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	   06-15  User-defined
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	This defines the upper 10 bits of the port key. The values can be
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	from 0 - 1023. If not given, the system defaults to 0.
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	This parameter has effect only in 802.3ad mode and is available through
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	SysFs interface.
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all_slaves_active
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	Specifies that duplicate frames (received on inactive ports) should be
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	dropped (0) or delivered (1).
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	Normally, bonding will drop duplicate frames (received on inactive
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	ports), which is desirable for most users. But there are some times
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	it is nice to allow duplicate frames to be delivered.
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	The default value is 0 (drop duplicate frames received on inactive
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	ports).
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arp_interval
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	Specifies the ARP link monitoring frequency in milliseconds.
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	The ARP monitor works by periodically checking the slave
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	devices to determine whether they have sent or received
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	traffic recently (the precise criteria depends upon the
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	bonding mode, and the state of the slave).  Regular traffic is
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	generated via ARP probes issued for the addresses specified by
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	the arp_ip_target option.
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	This behavior can be modified by the arp_validate option,
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	below.
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	If ARP monitoring is used in an etherchannel compatible mode
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	(modes 0 and 2), the switch should be configured in a mode
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	that evenly distributes packets across all links. If the
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	switch is configured to distribute the packets in an XOR
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	fashion, all replies from the ARP targets will be received on
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	the same link which could cause the other team members to
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	fail.  ARP monitoring should not be used in conjunction with
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	miimon.  A value of 0 disables ARP monitoring.  The default
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	value is 0.
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arp_ip_target
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	Specifies the IP addresses to use as ARP monitoring peers when
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	arp_interval is > 0.  These are the targets of the ARP request
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	sent to determine the health of the link to the targets.
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	Specify these values in ddd.ddd.ddd.ddd format.  Multiple IP
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	addresses must be separated by a comma.  At least one IP
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	address must be given for ARP monitoring to function.  The
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	maximum number of targets that can be specified is 16.  The
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	default value is no IP addresses.
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arp_validate
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	Specifies whether or not ARP probes and replies should be
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	validated in any mode that supports arp monitoring, or whether
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	non-ARP traffic should be filtered (disregarded) for link
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	monitoring purposes.
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	Possible values are:
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	none or 0
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		No validation or filtering is performed.
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	active or 1
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		Validation is performed only for the active slave.
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	backup or 2
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		Validation is performed only for backup slaves.
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	all or 3
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		Validation is performed for all slaves.
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	filter or 4
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		Filtering is applied to all slaves. No validation is
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		performed.
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	filter_active or 5
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		Filtering is applied to all slaves, validation is performed
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		only for the active slave.
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	filter_backup or 6
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		Filtering is applied to all slaves, validation is performed
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		only for backup slaves.
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	Validation:
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	Enabling validation causes the ARP monitor to examine the incoming
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	ARP requests and replies, and only consider a slave to be up if it
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	is receiving the appropriate ARP traffic.
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	For an active slave, the validation checks ARP replies to confirm
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	that they were generated by an arp_ip_target.  Since backup slaves
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	do not typically receive these replies, the validation performed
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	for backup slaves is on the broadcast ARP request sent out via the
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	active slave.  It is possible that some switch or network
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	configurations may result in situations wherein the backup slaves
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	do not receive the ARP requests; in such a situation, validation
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	of backup slaves must be disabled.
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	The validation of ARP requests on backup slaves is mainly helping
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	bonding to decide which slaves are more likely to work in case of
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	the active slave failure, it doesn't really guarantee that the
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	backup slave will work if it's selected as the next active slave.
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	Validation is useful in network configurations in which multiple
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	bonding hosts are concurrently issuing ARPs to one or more targets
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	beyond a common switch.  Should the link between the switch and
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	target fail (but not the switch itself), the probe traffic
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	generated by the multiple bonding instances will fool the standard
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	ARP monitor into considering the links as still up.  Use of
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	validation can resolve this, as the ARP monitor will only consider
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	ARP requests and replies associated with its own instance of
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	bonding.
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	Filtering:
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	Enabling filtering causes the ARP monitor to only use incoming ARP
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	packets for link availability purposes.  Arriving packets that are
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	not ARPs are delivered normally, but do not count when determining
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	if a slave is available.
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	Filtering operates by only considering the reception of ARP
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	packets (any ARP packet, regardless of source or destination) when
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	determining if a slave has received traffic for link availability
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	purposes.
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	Filtering is useful in network configurations in which significant
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	levels of third party broadcast traffic would fool the standard
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	ARP monitor into considering the links as still up.  Use of
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	filtering can resolve this, as only ARP traffic is considered for
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	link availability purposes.
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	This option was added in bonding version 3.1.0.
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arp_all_targets
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	Specifies the quantity of arp_ip_targets that must be reachable
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	in order for the ARP monitor to consider a slave as being up.
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	This option affects only active-backup mode for slaves with
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	arp_validation enabled.
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	Possible values are:
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	any or 0
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		consider the slave up only when any of the arp_ip_targets
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		is reachable
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	all or 1
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		consider the slave up only when all of the arp_ip_targets
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		are reachable
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downdelay
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	Specifies the time, in milliseconds, to wait before disabling
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	a slave after a link failure has been detected.  This option
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	is only valid for the miimon link monitor.  The downdelay
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	value should be a multiple of the miimon value; if not, it
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	will be rounded down to the nearest multiple.  The default
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	value is 0.
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fail_over_mac
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	Specifies whether active-backup mode should set all slaves to
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	the same MAC address at enslavement (the traditional
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	behavior), or, when enabled, perform special handling of the
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	bond's MAC address in accordance with the selected policy.
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	Possible values are:
 | 
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	none or 0
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		This setting disables fail_over_mac, and causes
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		bonding to set all slaves of an active-backup bond to
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		the same MAC address at enslavement time.  This is the
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		default.
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	active or 1
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		The "active" fail_over_mac policy indicates that the
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		MAC address of the bond should always be the MAC
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		address of the currently active slave.  The MAC
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		address of the slaves is not changed; instead, the MAC
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		address of the bond changes during a failover.
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		This policy is useful for devices that cannot ever
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		alter their MAC address, or for devices that refuse
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		incoming broadcasts with their own source MAC (which
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		interferes with the ARP monitor).
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		The down side of this policy is that every device on
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		the network must be updated via gratuitous ARP,
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		vs. just updating a switch or set of switches (which
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		often takes place for any traffic, not just ARP
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		traffic, if the switch snoops incoming traffic to
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		update its tables) for the traditional method.  If the
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		gratuitous ARP is lost, communication may be
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		disrupted.
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		When this policy is used in conjunction with the mii
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		monitor, devices which assert link up prior to being
 | 
						|
		able to actually transmit and receive are particularly
 | 
						|
		susceptible to loss of the gratuitous ARP, and an
 | 
						|
		appropriate updelay setting may be required.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	follow or 2
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		The "follow" fail_over_mac policy causes the MAC
 | 
						|
		address of the bond to be selected normally (normally
 | 
						|
		the MAC address of the first slave added to the bond).
 | 
						|
		However, the second and subsequent slaves are not set
 | 
						|
		to this MAC address while they are in a backup role; a
 | 
						|
		slave is programmed with the bond's MAC address at
 | 
						|
		failover time (and the formerly active slave receives
 | 
						|
		the newly active slave's MAC address).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This policy is useful for multiport devices that
 | 
						|
		either become confused or incur a performance penalty
 | 
						|
		when multiple ports are programmed with the same MAC
 | 
						|
		address.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The default policy is none, unless the first slave cannot
 | 
						|
	change its MAC address, in which case the active policy is
 | 
						|
	selected by default.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This option may be modified via sysfs only when no slaves are
 | 
						|
	present in the bond.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This option was added in bonding version 3.2.0.  The "follow"
 | 
						|
	policy was added in bonding version 3.3.0.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
lacp_rate
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Option specifying the rate in which we'll ask our link partner
 | 
						|
	to transmit LACPDU packets in 802.3ad mode.  Possible values
 | 
						|
	are:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	slow or 0
 | 
						|
		Request partner to transmit LACPDUs every 30 seconds
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	fast or 1
 | 
						|
		Request partner to transmit LACPDUs every 1 second
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The default is slow.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
max_bonds
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies the number of bonding devices to create for this
 | 
						|
	instance of the bonding driver.  E.g., if max_bonds is 3, and
 | 
						|
	the bonding driver is not already loaded, then bond0, bond1
 | 
						|
	and bond2 will be created.  The default value is 1.  Specifying
 | 
						|
	a value of 0 will load bonding, but will not create any devices.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
miimon
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies the MII link monitoring frequency in milliseconds.
 | 
						|
	This determines how often the link state of each slave is
 | 
						|
	inspected for link failures.  A value of zero disables MII
 | 
						|
	link monitoring.  A value of 100 is a good starting point.
 | 
						|
	The use_carrier option, below, affects how the link state is
 | 
						|
	determined.  See the High Availability section for additional
 | 
						|
	information.  The default value is 0.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
min_links
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies the minimum number of links that must be active before
 | 
						|
	asserting carrier. It is similar to the Cisco EtherChannel min-links
 | 
						|
	feature. This allows setting the minimum number of member ports that
 | 
						|
	must be up (link-up state) before marking the bond device as up
 | 
						|
	(carrier on). This is useful for situations where higher level services
 | 
						|
	such as clustering want to ensure a minimum number of low bandwidth
 | 
						|
	links are active before switchover. This option only affect 802.3ad
 | 
						|
	mode.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The default value is 0. This will cause carrier to be asserted (for
 | 
						|
	802.3ad mode) whenever there is an active aggregator, regardless of the
 | 
						|
	number of available links in that aggregator. Note that, because an
 | 
						|
	aggregator cannot be active without at least one available link,
 | 
						|
	setting this option to 0 or to 1 has the exact same effect.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
mode
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies one of the bonding policies. The default is
 | 
						|
	balance-rr (round robin).  Possible values are:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	balance-rr or 0
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Round-robin policy: Transmit packets in sequential
 | 
						|
		order from the first available slave through the
 | 
						|
		last.  This mode provides load balancing and fault
 | 
						|
		tolerance.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	active-backup or 1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Active-backup policy: Only one slave in the bond is
 | 
						|
		active.  A different slave becomes active if, and only
 | 
						|
		if, the active slave fails.  The bond's MAC address is
 | 
						|
		externally visible on only one port (network adapter)
 | 
						|
		to avoid confusing the switch.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		In bonding version 2.6.2 or later, when a failover
 | 
						|
		occurs in active-backup mode, bonding will issue one
 | 
						|
		or more gratuitous ARPs on the newly active slave.
 | 
						|
		One gratuitous ARP is issued for the bonding master
 | 
						|
		interface and each VLAN interfaces configured above
 | 
						|
		it, provided that the interface has at least one IP
 | 
						|
		address configured.  Gratuitous ARPs issued for VLAN
 | 
						|
		interfaces are tagged with the appropriate VLAN id.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This mode provides fault tolerance.  The primary
 | 
						|
		option, documented below, affects the behavior of this
 | 
						|
		mode.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	balance-xor or 2
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		XOR policy: Transmit based on the selected transmit
 | 
						|
		hash policy.  The default policy is a simple [(source
 | 
						|
		MAC address XOR'd with destination MAC address XOR
 | 
						|
		packet type ID) modulo slave count].  Alternate transmit
 | 
						|
		policies may be	selected via the xmit_hash_policy option,
 | 
						|
		described below.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	broadcast or 3
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Broadcast policy: transmits everything on all slave
 | 
						|
		interfaces.  This mode provides fault tolerance.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	802.3ad or 4
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic link aggregation.  Creates
 | 
						|
		aggregation groups that share the same speed and
 | 
						|
		duplex settings.  Utilizes all slaves in the active
 | 
						|
		aggregator according to the 802.3ad specification.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Slave selection for outgoing traffic is done according
 | 
						|
		to the transmit hash policy, which may be changed from
 | 
						|
		the default simple XOR policy via the xmit_hash_policy
 | 
						|
		option, documented below.  Note that not all transmit
 | 
						|
		policies may be 802.3ad compliant, particularly in
 | 
						|
		regards to the packet mis-ordering requirements of
 | 
						|
		section 43.2.4 of the 802.3ad standard.  Differing
 | 
						|
		peer implementations will have varying tolerances for
 | 
						|
		noncompliance.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Prerequisites:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		1. Ethtool support in the base drivers for retrieving
 | 
						|
		the speed and duplex of each slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		2. A switch that supports IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic link
 | 
						|
		aggregation.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Most switches will require some type of configuration
 | 
						|
		to enable 802.3ad mode.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	balance-tlb or 5
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Adaptive transmit load balancing: channel bonding that
 | 
						|
		does not require any special switch support.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		In tlb_dynamic_lb=1 mode; the outgoing traffic is
 | 
						|
		distributed according to the current load (computed
 | 
						|
		relative to the speed) on each slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		In tlb_dynamic_lb=0 mode; the load balancing based on
 | 
						|
		current load is disabled and the load is distributed
 | 
						|
		only using the hash distribution.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Incoming traffic is received by the current slave.
 | 
						|
		If the receiving slave fails, another slave takes over
 | 
						|
		the MAC address of the failed receiving slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Prerequisite:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Ethtool support in the base drivers for retrieving the
 | 
						|
		speed of each slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	balance-alb or 6
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Adaptive load balancing: includes balance-tlb plus
 | 
						|
		receive load balancing (rlb) for IPV4 traffic, and
 | 
						|
		does not require any special switch support.  The
 | 
						|
		receive load balancing is achieved by ARP negotiation.
 | 
						|
		The bonding driver intercepts the ARP Replies sent by
 | 
						|
		the local system on their way out and overwrites the
 | 
						|
		source hardware address with the unique hardware
 | 
						|
		address of one of the slaves in the bond such that
 | 
						|
		different peers use different hardware addresses for
 | 
						|
		the server.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Receive traffic from connections created by the server
 | 
						|
		is also balanced.  When the local system sends an ARP
 | 
						|
		Request the bonding driver copies and saves the peer's
 | 
						|
		IP information from the ARP packet.  When the ARP
 | 
						|
		Reply arrives from the peer, its hardware address is
 | 
						|
		retrieved and the bonding driver initiates an ARP
 | 
						|
		reply to this peer assigning it to one of the slaves
 | 
						|
		in the bond.  A problematic outcome of using ARP
 | 
						|
		negotiation for balancing is that each time that an
 | 
						|
		ARP request is broadcast it uses the hardware address
 | 
						|
		of the bond.  Hence, peers learn the hardware address
 | 
						|
		of the bond and the balancing of receive traffic
 | 
						|
		collapses to the current slave.  This is handled by
 | 
						|
		sending updates (ARP Replies) to all the peers with
 | 
						|
		their individually assigned hardware address such that
 | 
						|
		the traffic is redistributed.  Receive traffic is also
 | 
						|
		redistributed when a new slave is added to the bond
 | 
						|
		and when an inactive slave is re-activated.  The
 | 
						|
		receive load is distributed sequentially (round robin)
 | 
						|
		among the group of highest speed slaves in the bond.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		When a link is reconnected or a new slave joins the
 | 
						|
		bond the receive traffic is redistributed among all
 | 
						|
		active slaves in the bond by initiating ARP Replies
 | 
						|
		with the selected MAC address to each of the
 | 
						|
		clients. The updelay parameter (detailed below) must
 | 
						|
		be set to a value equal or greater than the switch's
 | 
						|
		forwarding delay so that the ARP Replies sent to the
 | 
						|
		peers will not be blocked by the switch.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Prerequisites:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		1. Ethtool support in the base drivers for retrieving
 | 
						|
		the speed of each slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		2. Base driver support for setting the hardware
 | 
						|
		address of a device while it is open.  This is
 | 
						|
		required so that there will always be one slave in the
 | 
						|
		team using the bond hardware address (the
 | 
						|
		curr_active_slave) while having a unique hardware
 | 
						|
		address for each slave in the bond.  If the
 | 
						|
		curr_active_slave fails its hardware address is
 | 
						|
		swapped with the new curr_active_slave that was
 | 
						|
		chosen.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
num_grat_arp
 | 
						|
num_unsol_na
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specify the number of peer notifications (gratuitous ARPs and
 | 
						|
	unsolicited IPv6 Neighbor Advertisements) to be issued after a
 | 
						|
	failover event.  As soon as the link is up on the new slave
 | 
						|
	(possibly immediately) a peer notification is sent on the
 | 
						|
	bonding device and each VLAN sub-device.  This is repeated at
 | 
						|
	each link monitor interval (arp_interval or miimon, whichever
 | 
						|
	is active) if the number is greater than 1.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The valid range is 0 - 255; the default value is 1.  These options
 | 
						|
	affect only the active-backup mode.  These options were added for
 | 
						|
	bonding versions 3.3.0 and 3.4.0 respectively.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	From Linux 3.0 and bonding version 3.7.1, these notifications
 | 
						|
	are generated by the ipv4 and ipv6 code and the numbers of
 | 
						|
	repetitions cannot be set independently.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
packets_per_slave
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specify the number of packets to transmit through a slave before
 | 
						|
	moving to the next one. When set to 0 then a slave is chosen at
 | 
						|
	random.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The valid range is 0 - 65535; the default value is 1. This option
 | 
						|
	has effect only in balance-rr mode.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
primary
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	A string (eth0, eth2, etc) specifying which slave is the
 | 
						|
	primary device.  The specified device will always be the
 | 
						|
	active slave while it is available.  Only when the primary is
 | 
						|
	off-line will alternate devices be used.  This is useful when
 | 
						|
	one slave is preferred over another, e.g., when one slave has
 | 
						|
	higher throughput than another.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The primary option is only valid for active-backup(1),
 | 
						|
	balance-tlb (5) and balance-alb (6) mode.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
primary_reselect
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies the reselection policy for the primary slave.  This
 | 
						|
	affects how the primary slave is chosen to become the active slave
 | 
						|
	when failure of the active slave or recovery of the primary slave
 | 
						|
	occurs.  This option is designed to prevent flip-flopping between
 | 
						|
	the primary slave and other slaves.  Possible values are:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	always or 0 (default)
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		The primary slave becomes the active slave whenever it
 | 
						|
		comes back up.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	better or 1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		The primary slave becomes the active slave when it comes
 | 
						|
		back up, if the speed and duplex of the primary slave is
 | 
						|
		better than the speed and duplex of the current active
 | 
						|
		slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	failure or 2
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		The primary slave becomes the active slave only if the
 | 
						|
		current active slave fails and the primary slave is up.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The primary_reselect setting is ignored in two cases:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		If no slaves are active, the first slave to recover is
 | 
						|
		made the active slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		When initially enslaved, the primary slave is always made
 | 
						|
		the active slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Changing the primary_reselect policy via sysfs will cause an
 | 
						|
	immediate selection of the best active slave according to the new
 | 
						|
	policy.  This may or may not result in a change of the active
 | 
						|
	slave, depending upon the circumstances.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This option was added for bonding version 3.6.0.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
tlb_dynamic_lb
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies if dynamic shuffling of flows is enabled in tlb
 | 
						|
	mode. The value has no effect on any other modes.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The default behavior of tlb mode is to shuffle active flows across
 | 
						|
	slaves based on the load in that interval. This gives nice lb
 | 
						|
	characteristics but can cause packet reordering. If re-ordering is
 | 
						|
	a concern use this variable to disable flow shuffling and rely on
 | 
						|
	load balancing provided solely by the hash distribution.
 | 
						|
	xmit-hash-policy can be used to select the appropriate hashing for
 | 
						|
	the setup.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The sysfs entry can be used to change the setting per bond device
 | 
						|
	and the initial value is derived from the module parameter. The
 | 
						|
	sysfs entry is allowed to be changed only if the bond device is
 | 
						|
	down.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The default value is "1" that enables flow shuffling while value "0"
 | 
						|
	disables it. This option was added in bonding driver 3.7.1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
updelay
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies the time, in milliseconds, to wait before enabling a
 | 
						|
	slave after a link recovery has been detected.  This option is
 | 
						|
	only valid for the miimon link monitor.  The updelay value
 | 
						|
	should be a multiple of the miimon value; if not, it will be
 | 
						|
	rounded down to the nearest multiple.  The default value is 0.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
use_carrier
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies whether or not miimon should use MII or ETHTOOL
 | 
						|
	ioctls vs. netif_carrier_ok() to determine the link
 | 
						|
	status. The MII or ETHTOOL ioctls are less efficient and
 | 
						|
	utilize a deprecated calling sequence within the kernel.  The
 | 
						|
	netif_carrier_ok() relies on the device driver to maintain its
 | 
						|
	state with netif_carrier_on/off; at this writing, most, but
 | 
						|
	not all, device drivers support this facility.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If bonding insists that the link is up when it should not be,
 | 
						|
	it may be that your network device driver does not support
 | 
						|
	netif_carrier_on/off.  The default state for netif_carrier is
 | 
						|
	"carrier on," so if a driver does not support netif_carrier,
 | 
						|
	it will appear as if the link is always up.  In this case,
 | 
						|
	setting use_carrier to 0 will cause bonding to revert to the
 | 
						|
	MII / ETHTOOL ioctl method to determine the link state.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	A value of 1 enables the use of netif_carrier_ok(), a value of
 | 
						|
	0 will use the deprecated MII / ETHTOOL ioctls.  The default
 | 
						|
	value is 1.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
xmit_hash_policy
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Selects the transmit hash policy to use for slave selection in
 | 
						|
	balance-xor, 802.3ad, and tlb modes.  Possible values are:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	layer2
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Uses XOR of hardware MAC addresses and packet type ID
 | 
						|
		field to generate the hash. The formula is
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		hash = source MAC XOR destination MAC XOR packet type ID
 | 
						|
		slave number = hash modulo slave count
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This algorithm will place all traffic to a particular
 | 
						|
		network peer on the same slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This algorithm is 802.3ad compliant.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	layer2+3
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This policy uses a combination of layer2 and layer3
 | 
						|
		protocol information to generate the hash.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		Uses XOR of hardware MAC addresses and IP addresses to
 | 
						|
		generate the hash.  The formula is
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		hash = source MAC XOR destination MAC XOR packet type ID
 | 
						|
		hash = hash XOR source IP XOR destination IP
 | 
						|
		hash = hash XOR (hash RSHIFT 16)
 | 
						|
		hash = hash XOR (hash RSHIFT 8)
 | 
						|
		And then hash is reduced modulo slave count.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		If the protocol is IPv6 then the source and destination
 | 
						|
		addresses are first hashed using ipv6_addr_hash.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This algorithm will place all traffic to a particular
 | 
						|
		network peer on the same slave.  For non-IP traffic,
 | 
						|
		the formula is the same as for the layer2 transmit
 | 
						|
		hash policy.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This policy is intended to provide a more balanced
 | 
						|
		distribution of traffic than layer2 alone, especially
 | 
						|
		in environments where a layer3 gateway device is
 | 
						|
		required to reach most destinations.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This algorithm is 802.3ad compliant.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	layer3+4
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This policy uses upper layer protocol information,
 | 
						|
		when available, to generate the hash.  This allows for
 | 
						|
		traffic to a particular network peer to span multiple
 | 
						|
		slaves, although a single connection will not span
 | 
						|
		multiple slaves.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		The formula for unfragmented TCP and UDP packets is
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		hash = source port, destination port (as in the header)
 | 
						|
		hash = hash XOR source IP XOR destination IP
 | 
						|
		hash = hash XOR (hash RSHIFT 16)
 | 
						|
		hash = hash XOR (hash RSHIFT 8)
 | 
						|
		And then hash is reduced modulo slave count.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		If the protocol is IPv6 then the source and destination
 | 
						|
		addresses are first hashed using ipv6_addr_hash.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		For fragmented TCP or UDP packets and all other IPv4 and
 | 
						|
		IPv6 protocol traffic, the source and destination port
 | 
						|
		information is omitted.  For non-IP traffic, the
 | 
						|
		formula is the same as for the layer2 transmit hash
 | 
						|
		policy.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This algorithm is not fully 802.3ad compliant.  A
 | 
						|
		single TCP or UDP conversation containing both
 | 
						|
		fragmented and unfragmented packets will see packets
 | 
						|
		striped across two interfaces.  This may result in out
 | 
						|
		of order delivery.  Most traffic types will not meet
 | 
						|
		this criteria, as TCP rarely fragments traffic, and
 | 
						|
		most UDP traffic is not involved in extended
 | 
						|
		conversations.  Other implementations of 802.3ad may
 | 
						|
		or may not tolerate this noncompliance.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	encap2+3
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This policy uses the same formula as layer2+3 but it
 | 
						|
		relies on skb_flow_dissect to obtain the header fields
 | 
						|
		which might result in the use of inner headers if an
 | 
						|
		encapsulation protocol is used. For example this will
 | 
						|
		improve the performance for tunnel users because the
 | 
						|
		packets will be distributed according to the encapsulated
 | 
						|
		flows.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	encap3+4
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
		This policy uses the same formula as layer3+4 but it
 | 
						|
		relies on skb_flow_dissect to obtain the header fields
 | 
						|
		which might result in the use of inner headers if an
 | 
						|
		encapsulation protocol is used. For example this will
 | 
						|
		improve the performance for tunnel users because the
 | 
						|
		packets will be distributed according to the encapsulated
 | 
						|
		flows.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The default value is layer2.  This option was added in bonding
 | 
						|
	version 2.6.3.  In earlier versions of bonding, this parameter
 | 
						|
	does not exist, and the layer2 policy is the only policy.  The
 | 
						|
	layer2+3 value was added for bonding version 3.2.2.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
resend_igmp
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies the number of IGMP membership reports to be issued after
 | 
						|
	a failover event. One membership report is issued immediately after
 | 
						|
	the failover, subsequent packets are sent in each 200ms interval.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The valid range is 0 - 255; the default value is 1. A value of 0
 | 
						|
	prevents the IGMP membership report from being issued in response
 | 
						|
	to the failover event.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This option is useful for bonding modes balance-rr (0), active-backup
 | 
						|
	(1), balance-tlb (5) and balance-alb (6), in which a failover can
 | 
						|
	switch the IGMP traffic from one slave to another.  Therefore a fresh
 | 
						|
	IGMP report must be issued to cause the switch to forward the incoming
 | 
						|
	IGMP traffic over the newly selected slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This option was added for bonding version 3.7.0.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
lp_interval
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Specifies the number of seconds between instances where the bonding
 | 
						|
	driver sends learning packets to each slaves peer switch.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The valid range is 1 - 0x7fffffff; the default value is 1. This Option
 | 
						|
	has effect only in balance-tlb and balance-alb modes.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3. Configuring Bonding Devices
 | 
						|
==============================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	You can configure bonding using either your distro's network
 | 
						|
initialization scripts, or manually using either iproute2 or the
 | 
						|
sysfs interface.  Distros generally use one of three packages for the
 | 
						|
network initialization scripts: initscripts, sysconfig or interfaces.
 | 
						|
Recent versions of these packages have support for bonding, while older
 | 
						|
versions do not.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	We will first describe the options for configuring bonding for
 | 
						|
distros using versions of initscripts, sysconfig and interfaces with full
 | 
						|
or partial support for bonding, then provide information on enabling
 | 
						|
bonding without support from the network initialization scripts (i.e.,
 | 
						|
older versions of initscripts or sysconfig).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If you're unsure whether your distro uses sysconfig,
 | 
						|
initscripts or interfaces, or don't know if it's new enough, have no fear.
 | 
						|
Determining this is fairly straightforward.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	First, look for a file called interfaces in /etc/network directory.
 | 
						|
If this file is present in your system, then your system use interfaces. See
 | 
						|
Configuration with Interfaces Support.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Else, issue the command:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
$ rpm -qf /sbin/ifup
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	It will respond with a line of text starting with either
 | 
						|
"initscripts" or "sysconfig," followed by some numbers.  This is the
 | 
						|
package that provides your network initialization scripts.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Next, to determine if your installation supports bonding,
 | 
						|
issue the command:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
$ grep ifenslave /sbin/ifup
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If this returns any matches, then your initscripts or
 | 
						|
sysconfig has support for bonding.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.1 Configuration with Sysconfig Support
 | 
						|
----------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This section applies to distros using a version of sysconfig
 | 
						|
with bonding support, for example, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	SuSE SLES 9's networking configuration system does support
 | 
						|
bonding, however, at this writing, the YaST system configuration
 | 
						|
front end does not provide any means to work with bonding devices.
 | 
						|
Bonding devices can be managed by hand, however, as follows.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	First, if they have not already been configured, configure the
 | 
						|
slave devices.  On SLES 9, this is most easily done by running the
 | 
						|
yast2 sysconfig configuration utility.  The goal is for to create an
 | 
						|
ifcfg-id file for each slave device.  The simplest way to accomplish
 | 
						|
this is to configure the devices for DHCP (this is only to get the
 | 
						|
file ifcfg-id file created; see below for some issues with DHCP).  The
 | 
						|
name of the configuration file for each device will be of the form:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
ifcfg-id-xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Where the "xx" portion will be replaced with the digits from
 | 
						|
the device's permanent MAC address.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Once the set of ifcfg-id-xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx files has been
 | 
						|
created, it is necessary to edit the configuration files for the slave
 | 
						|
devices (the MAC addresses correspond to those of the slave devices).
 | 
						|
Before editing, the file will contain multiple lines, and will look
 | 
						|
something like this:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
 | 
						|
STARTMODE='on'
 | 
						|
USERCTL='no'
 | 
						|
UNIQUE='XNzu.WeZGOGF+4wE'
 | 
						|
_nm_name='bus-pci-0001:61:01.0'
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Change the BOOTPROTO and STARTMODE lines to the following:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
BOOTPROTO='none'
 | 
						|
STARTMODE='off'
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Do not alter the UNIQUE or _nm_name lines.  Remove any other
 | 
						|
lines (USERCTL, etc).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Once the ifcfg-id-xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx files have been modified,
 | 
						|
it's time to create the configuration file for the bonding device
 | 
						|
itself.  This file is named ifcfg-bondX, where X is the number of the
 | 
						|
bonding device to create, starting at 0.  The first such file is
 | 
						|
ifcfg-bond0, the second is ifcfg-bond1, and so on.  The sysconfig
 | 
						|
network configuration system will correctly start multiple instances
 | 
						|
of bonding.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The contents of the ifcfg-bondX file is as follows:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
BOOTPROTO="static"
 | 
						|
BROADCAST="10.0.2.255"
 | 
						|
IPADDR="10.0.2.10"
 | 
						|
NETMASK="255.255.0.0"
 | 
						|
NETWORK="10.0.2.0"
 | 
						|
REMOTE_IPADDR=""
 | 
						|
STARTMODE="onboot"
 | 
						|
BONDING_MASTER="yes"
 | 
						|
BONDING_MODULE_OPTS="mode=active-backup miimon=100"
 | 
						|
BONDING_SLAVE0="eth0"
 | 
						|
BONDING_SLAVE1="bus-pci-0000:06:08.1"
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Replace the sample BROADCAST, IPADDR, NETMASK and NETWORK
 | 
						|
values with the appropriate values for your network.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The STARTMODE specifies when the device is brought online.
 | 
						|
The possible values are:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	onboot:	 The device is started at boot time.  If you're not
 | 
						|
		 sure, this is probably what you want.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	manual:	 The device is started only when ifup is called
 | 
						|
		 manually.  Bonding devices may be configured this
 | 
						|
		 way if you do not wish them to start automatically
 | 
						|
		 at boot for some reason.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	hotplug: The device is started by a hotplug event.  This is not
 | 
						|
		 a valid choice for a bonding device.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	off or ignore: The device configuration is ignored.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The line BONDING_MASTER='yes' indicates that the device is a
 | 
						|
bonding master device.  The only useful value is "yes."
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The contents of BONDING_MODULE_OPTS are supplied to the
 | 
						|
instance of the bonding module for this device.  Specify the options
 | 
						|
for the bonding mode, link monitoring, and so on here.  Do not include
 | 
						|
the max_bonds bonding parameter; this will confuse the configuration
 | 
						|
system if you have multiple bonding devices.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Finally, supply one BONDING_SLAVEn="slave device" for each
 | 
						|
slave.  where "n" is an increasing value, one for each slave.  The
 | 
						|
"slave device" is either an interface name, e.g., "eth0", or a device
 | 
						|
specifier for the network device.  The interface name is easier to
 | 
						|
find, but the ethN names are subject to change at boot time if, e.g.,
 | 
						|
a device early in the sequence has failed.  The device specifiers
 | 
						|
(bus-pci-0000:06:08.1 in the example above) specify the physical
 | 
						|
network device, and will not change unless the device's bus location
 | 
						|
changes (for example, it is moved from one PCI slot to another).  The
 | 
						|
example above uses one of each type for demonstration purposes; most
 | 
						|
configurations will choose one or the other for all slave devices.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	When all configuration files have been modified or created,
 | 
						|
networking must be restarted for the configuration changes to take
 | 
						|
effect.  This can be accomplished via the following:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# /etc/init.d/network restart
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Note that the network control script (/sbin/ifdown) will
 | 
						|
remove the bonding module as part of the network shutdown processing,
 | 
						|
so it is not necessary to remove the module by hand if, e.g., the
 | 
						|
module parameters have changed.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Also, at this writing, YaST/YaST2 will not manage bonding
 | 
						|
devices (they do not show bonding interfaces on its list of network
 | 
						|
devices).  It is necessary to edit the configuration file by hand to
 | 
						|
change the bonding configuration.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Additional general options and details of the ifcfg file
 | 
						|
format can be found in an example ifcfg template file:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
/etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg.template
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Note that the template does not document the various BONDING_
 | 
						|
settings described above, but does describe many of the other options.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.1.1 Using DHCP with Sysconfig
 | 
						|
-------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Under sysconfig, configuring a device with BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
 | 
						|
will cause it to query DHCP for its IP address information.  At this
 | 
						|
writing, this does not function for bonding devices; the scripts
 | 
						|
attempt to obtain the device address from DHCP prior to adding any of
 | 
						|
the slave devices.  Without active slaves, the DHCP requests are not
 | 
						|
sent to the network.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.1.2 Configuring Multiple Bonds with Sysconfig
 | 
						|
-----------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The sysconfig network initialization system is capable of
 | 
						|
handling multiple bonding devices.  All that is necessary is for each
 | 
						|
bonding instance to have an appropriately configured ifcfg-bondX file
 | 
						|
(as described above).  Do not specify the "max_bonds" parameter to any
 | 
						|
instance of bonding, as this will confuse sysconfig.  If you require
 | 
						|
multiple bonding devices with identical parameters, create multiple
 | 
						|
ifcfg-bondX files.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Because the sysconfig scripts supply the bonding module
 | 
						|
options in the ifcfg-bondX file, it is not necessary to add them to
 | 
						|
the system /etc/modules.d/*.conf configuration files.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.2 Configuration with Initscripts Support
 | 
						|
------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This section applies to distros using a recent version of
 | 
						|
initscripts with bonding support, for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
 | 
						|
version 3 or later, Fedora, etc.  On these systems, the network
 | 
						|
initialization scripts have knowledge of bonding, and can be configured to
 | 
						|
control bonding devices.  Note that older versions of the initscripts
 | 
						|
package have lower levels of support for bonding; this will be noted where
 | 
						|
applicable.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	These distros will not automatically load the network adapter
 | 
						|
driver unless the ethX device is configured with an IP address.
 | 
						|
Because of this constraint, users must manually configure a
 | 
						|
network-script file for all physical adapters that will be members of
 | 
						|
a bondX link.  Network script files are located in the directory:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The file name must be prefixed with "ifcfg-eth" and suffixed
 | 
						|
with the adapter's physical adapter number.  For example, the script
 | 
						|
for eth0 would be named /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0.
 | 
						|
Place the following text in the file:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
DEVICE=eth0
 | 
						|
USERCTL=no
 | 
						|
ONBOOT=yes
 | 
						|
MASTER=bond0
 | 
						|
SLAVE=yes
 | 
						|
BOOTPROTO=none
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The DEVICE= line will be different for every ethX device and
 | 
						|
must correspond with the name of the file, i.e., ifcfg-eth1 must have
 | 
						|
a device line of DEVICE=eth1.  The setting of the MASTER= line will
 | 
						|
also depend on the final bonding interface name chosen for your bond.
 | 
						|
As with other network devices, these typically start at 0, and go up
 | 
						|
one for each device, i.e., the first bonding instance is bond0, the
 | 
						|
second is bond1, and so on.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Next, create a bond network script.  The file name for this
 | 
						|
script will be /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bondX where X is
 | 
						|
the number of the bond.  For bond0 the file is named "ifcfg-bond0",
 | 
						|
for bond1 it is named "ifcfg-bond1", and so on.  Within that file,
 | 
						|
place the following text:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
DEVICE=bond0
 | 
						|
IPADDR=192.168.1.1
 | 
						|
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
 | 
						|
NETWORK=192.168.1.0
 | 
						|
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
 | 
						|
ONBOOT=yes
 | 
						|
BOOTPROTO=none
 | 
						|
USERCTL=no
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Be sure to change the networking specific lines (IPADDR,
 | 
						|
NETMASK, NETWORK and BROADCAST) to match your network configuration.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For later versions of initscripts, such as that found with Fedora
 | 
						|
7 (or later) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5 (or later), it is possible,
 | 
						|
and, indeed, preferable, to specify the bonding options in the ifcfg-bond0
 | 
						|
file, e.g. a line of the format:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
BONDING_OPTS="mode=active-backup arp_interval=60 arp_ip_target=192.168.1.254"
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	will configure the bond with the specified options.  The options
 | 
						|
specified in BONDING_OPTS are identical to the bonding module parameters
 | 
						|
except for the arp_ip_target field when using versions of initscripts older
 | 
						|
than and 8.57 (Fedora 8) and 8.45.19 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2).  When
 | 
						|
using older versions each target should be included as a separate option and
 | 
						|
should be preceded by a '+' to indicate it should be added to the list of
 | 
						|
queried targets, e.g.,
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	arp_ip_target=+192.168.1.1 arp_ip_target=+192.168.1.2
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	is the proper syntax to specify multiple targets.  When specifying
 | 
						|
options via BONDING_OPTS, it is not necessary to edit /etc/modprobe.d/*.conf.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For even older versions of initscripts that do not support
 | 
						|
BONDING_OPTS, it is necessary to edit /etc/modprobe.d/*.conf, depending upon
 | 
						|
your distro) to load the bonding module with your desired options when the
 | 
						|
bond0 interface is brought up.  The following lines in /etc/modprobe.d/*.conf
 | 
						|
will load the bonding module, and select its options:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
alias bond0 bonding
 | 
						|
options bond0 mode=balance-alb miimon=100
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Replace the sample parameters with the appropriate set of
 | 
						|
options for your configuration.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Finally run "/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart" as root.  This
 | 
						|
will restart the networking subsystem and your bond link should be now
 | 
						|
up and running.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.2.1 Using DHCP with Initscripts
 | 
						|
---------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Recent versions of initscripts (the versions supplied with Fedora
 | 
						|
Core 3 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, or later versions, are reported to
 | 
						|
work) have support for assigning IP information to bonding devices via
 | 
						|
DHCP.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	To configure bonding for DHCP, configure it as described
 | 
						|
above, except replace the line "BOOTPROTO=none" with "BOOTPROTO=dhcp"
 | 
						|
and add a line consisting of "TYPE=Bonding".  Note that the TYPE value
 | 
						|
is case sensitive.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.2.2 Configuring Multiple Bonds with Initscripts
 | 
						|
-------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Initscripts packages that are included with Fedora 7 and Red Hat
 | 
						|
Enterprise Linux 5 support multiple bonding interfaces by simply
 | 
						|
specifying the appropriate BONDING_OPTS= in ifcfg-bondX where X is the
 | 
						|
number of the bond.  This support requires sysfs support in the kernel,
 | 
						|
and a bonding driver of version 3.0.0 or later.  Other configurations may
 | 
						|
not support this method for specifying multiple bonding interfaces; for
 | 
						|
those instances, see the "Configuring Multiple Bonds Manually" section,
 | 
						|
below.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.3 Configuring Bonding Manually with iproute2
 | 
						|
-----------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This section applies to distros whose network initialization
 | 
						|
scripts (the sysconfig or initscripts package) do not have specific
 | 
						|
knowledge of bonding.  One such distro is SuSE Linux Enterprise Server
 | 
						|
version 8.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The general method for these systems is to place the bonding
 | 
						|
module parameters into a config file in /etc/modprobe.d/ (as
 | 
						|
appropriate for the installed distro), then add modprobe and/or
 | 
						|
`ip link` commands to the system's global init script.  The name of
 | 
						|
the global init script differs; for sysconfig, it is
 | 
						|
/etc/init.d/boot.local and for initscripts it is /etc/rc.d/rc.local.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For example, if you wanted to make a simple bond of two e100
 | 
						|
devices (presumed to be eth0 and eth1), and have it persist across
 | 
						|
reboots, edit the appropriate file (/etc/init.d/boot.local or
 | 
						|
/etc/rc.d/rc.local), and add the following:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
modprobe bonding mode=balance-alb miimon=100
 | 
						|
modprobe e100
 | 
						|
ifconfig bond0 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
 | 
						|
ip link set eth0 master bond0
 | 
						|
ip link set eth1 master bond0
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Replace the example bonding module parameters and bond0
 | 
						|
network configuration (IP address, netmask, etc) with the appropriate
 | 
						|
values for your configuration.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Unfortunately, this method will not provide support for the
 | 
						|
ifup and ifdown scripts on the bond devices.  To reload the bonding
 | 
						|
configuration, it is necessary to run the initialization script, e.g.,
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# /etc/init.d/boot.local
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	or
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# /etc/rc.d/rc.local
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	It may be desirable in such a case to create a separate script
 | 
						|
which only initializes the bonding configuration, then call that
 | 
						|
separate script from within boot.local.  This allows for bonding to be
 | 
						|
enabled without re-running the entire global init script.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	To shut down the bonding devices, it is necessary to first
 | 
						|
mark the bonding device itself as being down, then remove the
 | 
						|
appropriate device driver modules.  For our example above, you can do
 | 
						|
the following:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# ifconfig bond0 down
 | 
						|
# rmmod bonding
 | 
						|
# rmmod e100
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Again, for convenience, it may be desirable to create a script
 | 
						|
with these commands.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.3.1 Configuring Multiple Bonds Manually
 | 
						|
-----------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This section contains information on configuring multiple
 | 
						|
bonding devices with differing options for those systems whose network
 | 
						|
initialization scripts lack support for configuring multiple bonds.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If you require multiple bonding devices, but all with the same
 | 
						|
options, you may wish to use the "max_bonds" module parameter,
 | 
						|
documented above.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	To create multiple bonding devices with differing options, it is
 | 
						|
preferable to use bonding parameters exported by sysfs, documented in the
 | 
						|
section below.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For versions of bonding without sysfs support, the only means to
 | 
						|
provide multiple instances of bonding with differing options is to load
 | 
						|
the bonding driver multiple times.  Note that current versions of the
 | 
						|
sysconfig network initialization scripts handle this automatically; if
 | 
						|
your distro uses these scripts, no special action is needed.  See the
 | 
						|
section Configuring Bonding Devices, above, if you're not sure about your
 | 
						|
network initialization scripts.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	To load multiple instances of the module, it is necessary to
 | 
						|
specify a different name for each instance (the module loading system
 | 
						|
requires that every loaded module, even multiple instances of the same
 | 
						|
module, have a unique name).  This is accomplished by supplying multiple
 | 
						|
sets of bonding options in /etc/modprobe.d/*.conf, for example:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
alias bond0 bonding
 | 
						|
options bond0 -o bond0 mode=balance-rr miimon=100
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
alias bond1 bonding
 | 
						|
options bond1 -o bond1 mode=balance-alb miimon=50
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	will load the bonding module two times.  The first instance is
 | 
						|
named "bond0" and creates the bond0 device in balance-rr mode with an
 | 
						|
miimon of 100.  The second instance is named "bond1" and creates the
 | 
						|
bond1 device in balance-alb mode with an miimon of 50.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In some circumstances (typically with older distributions),
 | 
						|
the above does not work, and the second bonding instance never sees
 | 
						|
its options.  In that case, the second options line can be substituted
 | 
						|
as follows:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
install bond1 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install bonding -o bond1 \
 | 
						|
	mode=balance-alb miimon=50
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This may be repeated any number of times, specifying a new and
 | 
						|
unique name in place of bond1 for each subsequent instance.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	It has been observed that some Red Hat supplied kernels are unable
 | 
						|
to rename modules at load time (the "-o bond1" part).  Attempts to pass
 | 
						|
that option to modprobe will produce an "Operation not permitted" error.
 | 
						|
This has been reported on some Fedora Core kernels, and has been seen on
 | 
						|
RHEL 4 as well.  On kernels exhibiting this problem, it will be impossible
 | 
						|
to configure multiple bonds with differing parameters (as they are older
 | 
						|
kernels, and also lack sysfs support).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.4 Configuring Bonding Manually via Sysfs
 | 
						|
------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Starting with version 3.0.0, Channel Bonding may be configured
 | 
						|
via the sysfs interface.  This interface allows dynamic configuration
 | 
						|
of all bonds in the system without unloading the module.  It also
 | 
						|
allows for adding and removing bonds at runtime.  Ifenslave is no
 | 
						|
longer required, though it is still supported.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Use of the sysfs interface allows you to use multiple bonds
 | 
						|
with different configurations without having to reload the module.
 | 
						|
It also allows you to use multiple, differently configured bonds when
 | 
						|
bonding is compiled into the kernel.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	You must have the sysfs filesystem mounted to configure
 | 
						|
bonding this way.  The examples in this document assume that you
 | 
						|
are using the standard mount point for sysfs, e.g. /sys.  If your
 | 
						|
sysfs filesystem is mounted elsewhere, you will need to adjust the
 | 
						|
example paths accordingly.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Creating and Destroying Bonds
 | 
						|
-----------------------------
 | 
						|
To add a new bond foo:
 | 
						|
# echo +foo > /sys/class/net/bonding_masters
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
To remove an existing bond bar:
 | 
						|
# echo -bar > /sys/class/net/bonding_masters
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
To show all existing bonds:
 | 
						|
# cat /sys/class/net/bonding_masters
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
NOTE: due to 4K size limitation of sysfs files, this list may be
 | 
						|
truncated if you have more than a few hundred bonds.  This is unlikely
 | 
						|
to occur under normal operating conditions.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Adding and Removing Slaves
 | 
						|
--------------------------
 | 
						|
	Interfaces may be enslaved to a bond using the file
 | 
						|
/sys/class/net/<bond>/bonding/slaves.  The semantics for this file
 | 
						|
are the same as for the bonding_masters file.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
To enslave interface eth0 to bond bond0:
 | 
						|
# ifconfig bond0 up
 | 
						|
# echo +eth0 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
To free slave eth0 from bond bond0:
 | 
						|
# echo -eth0 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	When an interface is enslaved to a bond, symlinks between the
 | 
						|
two are created in the sysfs filesystem.  In this case, you would get
 | 
						|
/sys/class/net/bond0/slave_eth0 pointing to /sys/class/net/eth0, and
 | 
						|
/sys/class/net/eth0/master pointing to /sys/class/net/bond0.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This means that you can tell quickly whether or not an
 | 
						|
interface is enslaved by looking for the master symlink.  Thus:
 | 
						|
# echo -eth0 > /sys/class/net/eth0/master/bonding/slaves
 | 
						|
will free eth0 from whatever bond it is enslaved to, regardless of
 | 
						|
the name of the bond interface.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Changing a Bond's Configuration
 | 
						|
-------------------------------
 | 
						|
	Each bond may be configured individually by manipulating the
 | 
						|
files located in /sys/class/net/<bond name>/bonding
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The names of these files correspond directly with the command-
 | 
						|
line parameters described elsewhere in this file, and, with the
 | 
						|
exception of arp_ip_target, they accept the same values.  To see the
 | 
						|
current setting, simply cat the appropriate file.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	A few examples will be given here; for specific usage
 | 
						|
guidelines for each parameter, see the appropriate section in this
 | 
						|
document.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
To configure bond0 for balance-alb mode:
 | 
						|
# ifconfig bond0 down
 | 
						|
# echo 6 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode
 | 
						|
 - or -
 | 
						|
# echo balance-alb > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode
 | 
						|
	NOTE: The bond interface must be down before the mode can be
 | 
						|
changed.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
To enable MII monitoring on bond0 with a 1 second interval:
 | 
						|
# echo 1000 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/miimon
 | 
						|
	NOTE: If ARP monitoring is enabled, it will disabled when MII
 | 
						|
monitoring is enabled, and vice-versa.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
To add ARP targets:
 | 
						|
# echo +192.168.0.100 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/arp_ip_target
 | 
						|
# echo +192.168.0.101 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/arp_ip_target
 | 
						|
	NOTE:  up to 16 target addresses may be specified.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
To remove an ARP target:
 | 
						|
# echo -192.168.0.100 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/arp_ip_target
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
To configure the interval between learning packet transmits:
 | 
						|
# echo 12 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/lp_interval
 | 
						|
	NOTE: the lp_interval is the number of seconds between instances where
 | 
						|
the bonding driver sends learning packets to each slaves peer switch.  The
 | 
						|
default interval is 1 second.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Example Configuration
 | 
						|
---------------------
 | 
						|
	We begin with the same example that is shown in section 3.3,
 | 
						|
executed with sysfs, and without using ifenslave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	To make a simple bond of two e100 devices (presumed to be eth0
 | 
						|
and eth1), and have it persist across reboots, edit the appropriate
 | 
						|
file (/etc/init.d/boot.local or /etc/rc.d/rc.local), and add the
 | 
						|
following:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
modprobe bonding
 | 
						|
modprobe e100
 | 
						|
echo balance-alb > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode
 | 
						|
ifconfig bond0 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
 | 
						|
echo 100 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/miimon
 | 
						|
echo +eth0 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
 | 
						|
echo +eth1 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	To add a second bond, with two e1000 interfaces in
 | 
						|
active-backup mode, using ARP monitoring, add the following lines to
 | 
						|
your init script:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
modprobe e1000
 | 
						|
echo +bond1 > /sys/class/net/bonding_masters
 | 
						|
echo active-backup > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/mode
 | 
						|
ifconfig bond1 192.168.2.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
 | 
						|
echo +192.168.2.100 /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/arp_ip_target
 | 
						|
echo 2000 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/arp_interval
 | 
						|
echo +eth2 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/slaves
 | 
						|
echo +eth3 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/slaves
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.5 Configuration with Interfaces Support
 | 
						|
-----------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
        This section applies to distros which use /etc/network/interfaces file
 | 
						|
to describe network interface configuration, most notably Debian and it's
 | 
						|
derivatives.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The ifup and ifdown commands on Debian don't support bonding out of
 | 
						|
the box. The ifenslave-2.6 package should be installed to provide bonding
 | 
						|
support.  Once installed, this package will provide bond-* options to be used
 | 
						|
into /etc/network/interfaces.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Note that ifenslave-2.6 package will load the bonding module and use
 | 
						|
the ifenslave command when appropriate.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Example Configurations
 | 
						|
----------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
In /etc/network/interfaces, the following stanza will configure bond0, in
 | 
						|
active-backup mode, with eth0 and eth1 as slaves.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
auto bond0
 | 
						|
iface bond0 inet dhcp
 | 
						|
	bond-slaves eth0 eth1
 | 
						|
	bond-mode active-backup
 | 
						|
	bond-miimon 100
 | 
						|
	bond-primary eth0 eth1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
If the above configuration doesn't work, you might have a system using
 | 
						|
upstart for system startup. This is most notably true for recent
 | 
						|
Ubuntu versions. The following stanza in /etc/network/interfaces will
 | 
						|
produce the same result on those systems.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
auto bond0
 | 
						|
iface bond0 inet dhcp
 | 
						|
	bond-slaves none
 | 
						|
	bond-mode active-backup
 | 
						|
	bond-miimon 100
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
auto eth0
 | 
						|
iface eth0 inet manual
 | 
						|
	bond-master bond0
 | 
						|
	bond-primary eth0 eth1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
auto eth1
 | 
						|
iface eth1 inet manual
 | 
						|
	bond-master bond0
 | 
						|
	bond-primary eth0 eth1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
For a full list of bond-* supported options in /etc/network/interfaces and some
 | 
						|
more advanced examples tailored to you particular distros, see the files in
 | 
						|
/usr/share/doc/ifenslave-2.6.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.6 Overriding Configuration for Special Cases
 | 
						|
----------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
When using the bonding driver, the physical port which transmits a frame is
 | 
						|
typically selected by the bonding driver, and is not relevant to the user or
 | 
						|
system administrator.  The output port is simply selected using the policies of
 | 
						|
the selected bonding mode.  On occasion however, it is helpful to direct certain
 | 
						|
classes of traffic to certain physical interfaces on output to implement
 | 
						|
slightly more complex policies.  For example, to reach a web server over a
 | 
						|
bonded interface in which eth0 connects to a private network, while eth1
 | 
						|
connects via a public network, it may be desirous to bias the bond to send said
 | 
						|
traffic over eth0 first, using eth1 only as a fall back, while all other traffic
 | 
						|
can safely be sent over either interface.  Such configurations may be achieved
 | 
						|
using the traffic control utilities inherent in linux.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
By default the bonding driver is multiqueue aware and 16 queues are created
 | 
						|
when the driver initializes (see Documentation/networking/multiqueue.txt
 | 
						|
for details).  If more or less queues are desired the module parameter
 | 
						|
tx_queues can be used to change this value.  There is no sysfs parameter
 | 
						|
available as the allocation is done at module init time.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
The output of the file /proc/net/bonding/bondX has changed so the output Queue
 | 
						|
ID is now printed for each slave:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Bonding Mode: fault-tolerance (active-backup)
 | 
						|
Primary Slave: None
 | 
						|
Currently Active Slave: eth0
 | 
						|
MII Status: up
 | 
						|
MII Polling Interval (ms): 0
 | 
						|
Up Delay (ms): 0
 | 
						|
Down Delay (ms): 0
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Slave Interface: eth0
 | 
						|
MII Status: up
 | 
						|
Link Failure Count: 0
 | 
						|
Permanent HW addr: 00:1a:a0:12:8f:cb
 | 
						|
Slave queue ID: 0
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Slave Interface: eth1
 | 
						|
MII Status: up
 | 
						|
Link Failure Count: 0
 | 
						|
Permanent HW addr: 00:1a:a0:12:8f:cc
 | 
						|
Slave queue ID: 2
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
The queue_id for a slave can be set using the command:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# echo "eth1:2" > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/queue_id
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Any interface that needs a queue_id set should set it with multiple calls
 | 
						|
like the one above until proper priorities are set for all interfaces.  On
 | 
						|
distributions that allow configuration via initscripts, multiple 'queue_id'
 | 
						|
arguments can be added to BONDING_OPTS to set all needed slave queues.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
These queue id's can be used in conjunction with the tc utility to configure
 | 
						|
a multiqueue qdisc and filters to bias certain traffic to transmit on certain
 | 
						|
slave devices.  For instance, say we wanted, in the above configuration to
 | 
						|
force all traffic bound to 192.168.1.100 to use eth1 in the bond as its output
 | 
						|
device. The following commands would accomplish this:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# tc qdisc add dev bond0 handle 1 root multiq
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# tc filter add dev bond0 protocol ip parent 1: prio 1 u32 match ip dst \
 | 
						|
	192.168.1.100 action skbedit queue_mapping 2
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
These commands tell the kernel to attach a multiqueue queue discipline to the
 | 
						|
bond0 interface and filter traffic enqueued to it, such that packets with a dst
 | 
						|
ip of 192.168.1.100 have their output queue mapping value overwritten to 2.
 | 
						|
This value is then passed into the driver, causing the normal output path
 | 
						|
selection policy to be overridden, selecting instead qid 2, which maps to eth1.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Note that qid values begin at 1.  Qid 0 is reserved to initiate to the driver
 | 
						|
that normal output policy selection should take place.  One benefit to simply
 | 
						|
leaving the qid for a slave to 0 is the multiqueue awareness in the bonding
 | 
						|
driver that is now present.  This awareness allows tc filters to be placed on
 | 
						|
slave devices as well as bond devices and the bonding driver will simply act as
 | 
						|
a pass-through for selecting output queues on the slave device rather than 
 | 
						|
output port selection.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
This feature first appeared in bonding driver version 3.7.0 and support for
 | 
						|
output slave selection was limited to round-robin and active-backup modes.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.7 Configuring LACP for 802.3ad mode in a more secure way
 | 
						|
----------------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
When using 802.3ad bonding mode, the Actor (host) and Partner (switch)
 | 
						|
exchange LACPDUs.  These LACPDUs cannot be sniffed, because they are
 | 
						|
destined to link local mac addresses (which switches/bridges are not
 | 
						|
supposed to forward).  However, most of the values are easily predictable
 | 
						|
or are simply the machine's MAC address (which is trivially known to all
 | 
						|
other hosts in the same L2).  This implies that other machines in the L2
 | 
						|
domain can spoof LACPDU packets from other hosts to the switch and potentially
 | 
						|
cause mayhem by joining (from the point of view of the switch) another
 | 
						|
machine's aggregate, thus receiving a portion of that hosts incoming
 | 
						|
traffic and / or spoofing traffic from that machine themselves (potentially
 | 
						|
even successfully terminating some portion of flows). Though this is not
 | 
						|
a likely scenario, one could avoid this possibility by simply configuring
 | 
						|
few bonding parameters:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
   (a) ad_actor_system : You can set a random mac-address that can be used for
 | 
						|
       these LACPDU exchanges. The value can not be either NULL or Multicast.
 | 
						|
       Also it's preferable to set the local-admin bit. Following shell code
 | 
						|
       generates a random mac-address as described above.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
       # sys_mac_addr=$(printf '%02x:%02x:%02x:%02x:%02x:%02x' \
 | 
						|
                                $(( (RANDOM & 0xFE) | 0x02 )) \
 | 
						|
                                $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )) \
 | 
						|
                                $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )) \
 | 
						|
                                $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )) \
 | 
						|
                                $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )) \
 | 
						|
                                $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )))
 | 
						|
       # echo $sys_mac_addr > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/ad_actor_system
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
   (b) ad_actor_sys_prio : Randomize the system priority. The default value
 | 
						|
       is 65535, but system can take the value from 1 - 65535. Following shell
 | 
						|
       code generates random priority and sets it.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
       # sys_prio=$(( 1 + RANDOM + RANDOM ))
 | 
						|
       # echo $sys_prio > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/ad_actor_sys_prio
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
   (c) ad_user_port_key : Use the user portion of the port-key. The default
 | 
						|
       keeps this empty. These are the upper 10 bits of the port-key and value
 | 
						|
       ranges from 0 - 1023. Following shell code generates these 10 bits and
 | 
						|
       sets it.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
       # usr_port_key=$(( RANDOM & 0x3FF ))
 | 
						|
       # echo $usr_port_key > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/ad_user_port_key
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
4 Querying Bonding Configuration
 | 
						|
=================================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
4.1 Bonding Configuration
 | 
						|
-------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Each bonding device has a read-only file residing in the
 | 
						|
/proc/net/bonding directory.  The file contents include information
 | 
						|
about the bonding configuration, options and state of each slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For example, the contents of /proc/net/bonding/bond0 after the
 | 
						|
driver is loaded with parameters of mode=0 and miimon=1000 is
 | 
						|
generally as follows:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: 2.6.1 (October 29, 2004)
 | 
						|
        Bonding Mode: load balancing (round-robin)
 | 
						|
        Currently Active Slave: eth0
 | 
						|
        MII Status: up
 | 
						|
        MII Polling Interval (ms): 1000
 | 
						|
        Up Delay (ms): 0
 | 
						|
        Down Delay (ms): 0
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
        Slave Interface: eth1
 | 
						|
        MII Status: up
 | 
						|
        Link Failure Count: 1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
        Slave Interface: eth0
 | 
						|
        MII Status: up
 | 
						|
        Link Failure Count: 1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The precise format and contents will change depending upon the
 | 
						|
bonding configuration, state, and version of the bonding driver.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
4.2 Network configuration
 | 
						|
-------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The network configuration can be inspected using the ifconfig
 | 
						|
command.  Bonding devices will have the MASTER flag set; Bonding slave
 | 
						|
devices will have the SLAVE flag set.  The ifconfig output does not
 | 
						|
contain information on which slaves are associated with which masters.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In the example below, the bond0 interface is the master
 | 
						|
(MASTER) while eth0 and eth1 are slaves (SLAVE). Notice all slaves of
 | 
						|
bond0 have the same MAC address (HWaddr) as bond0 for all modes except
 | 
						|
TLB and ALB that require a unique MAC address for each slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# /sbin/ifconfig
 | 
						|
bond0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:C0:F0:1F:37:B4
 | 
						|
          inet addr:XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY  Bcast:XXX.XXX.XXX.255  Mask:255.255.252.0
 | 
						|
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MASTER MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
 | 
						|
          RX packets:7224794 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
 | 
						|
          TX packets:3286647 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:1 carrier:0
 | 
						|
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:C0:F0:1F:37:B4
 | 
						|
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
 | 
						|
          RX packets:3573025 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
 | 
						|
          TX packets:1643167 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:1 carrier:0
 | 
						|
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
 | 
						|
          Interrupt:10 Base address:0x1080
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:C0:F0:1F:37:B4
 | 
						|
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
 | 
						|
          RX packets:3651769 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
 | 
						|
          TX packets:1643480 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
 | 
						|
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
 | 
						|
          Interrupt:9 Base address:0x1400
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
5. Switch Configuration
 | 
						|
=======================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For this section, "switch" refers to whatever system the
 | 
						|
bonded devices are directly connected to (i.e., where the other end of
 | 
						|
the cable plugs into).  This may be an actual dedicated switch device,
 | 
						|
or it may be another regular system (e.g., another computer running
 | 
						|
Linux),
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The active-backup, balance-tlb and balance-alb modes do not
 | 
						|
require any specific configuration of the switch.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The 802.3ad mode requires that the switch have the appropriate
 | 
						|
ports configured as an 802.3ad aggregation.  The precise method used
 | 
						|
to configure this varies from switch to switch, but, for example, a
 | 
						|
Cisco 3550 series switch requires that the appropriate ports first be
 | 
						|
grouped together in a single etherchannel instance, then that
 | 
						|
etherchannel is set to mode "lacp" to enable 802.3ad (instead of
 | 
						|
standard EtherChannel).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The balance-rr, balance-xor and broadcast modes generally
 | 
						|
require that the switch have the appropriate ports grouped together.
 | 
						|
The nomenclature for such a group differs between switches, it may be
 | 
						|
called an "etherchannel" (as in the Cisco example, above), a "trunk
 | 
						|
group" or some other similar variation.  For these modes, each switch
 | 
						|
will also have its own configuration options for the switch's transmit
 | 
						|
policy to the bond.  Typical choices include XOR of either the MAC or
 | 
						|
IP addresses.  The transmit policy of the two peers does not need to
 | 
						|
match.  For these three modes, the bonding mode really selects a
 | 
						|
transmit policy for an EtherChannel group; all three will interoperate
 | 
						|
with another EtherChannel group.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
6. 802.1q VLAN Support
 | 
						|
======================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	It is possible to configure VLAN devices over a bond interface
 | 
						|
using the 8021q driver.  However, only packets coming from the 8021q
 | 
						|
driver and passing through bonding will be tagged by default.  Self
 | 
						|
generated packets, for example, bonding's learning packets or ARP
 | 
						|
packets generated by either ALB mode or the ARP monitor mechanism, are
 | 
						|
tagged internally by bonding itself.  As a result, bonding must
 | 
						|
"learn" the VLAN IDs configured above it, and use those IDs to tag
 | 
						|
self generated packets.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For reasons of simplicity, and to support the use of adapters
 | 
						|
that can do VLAN hardware acceleration offloading, the bonding
 | 
						|
interface declares itself as fully hardware offloading capable, it gets
 | 
						|
the add_vid/kill_vid notifications to gather the necessary
 | 
						|
information, and it propagates those actions to the slaves.  In case
 | 
						|
of mixed adapter types, hardware accelerated tagged packets that
 | 
						|
should go through an adapter that is not offloading capable are
 | 
						|
"un-accelerated" by the bonding driver so the VLAN tag sits in the
 | 
						|
regular location.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	VLAN interfaces *must* be added on top of a bonding interface
 | 
						|
only after enslaving at least one slave.  The bonding interface has a
 | 
						|
hardware address of 00:00:00:00:00:00 until the first slave is added.
 | 
						|
If the VLAN interface is created prior to the first enslavement, it
 | 
						|
would pick up the all-zeroes hardware address.  Once the first slave
 | 
						|
is attached to the bond, the bond device itself will pick up the
 | 
						|
slave's hardware address, which is then available for the VLAN device.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Also, be aware that a similar problem can occur if all slaves
 | 
						|
are released from a bond that still has one or more VLAN interfaces on
 | 
						|
top of it.  When a new slave is added, the bonding interface will
 | 
						|
obtain its hardware address from the first slave, which might not
 | 
						|
match the hardware address of the VLAN interfaces (which was
 | 
						|
ultimately copied from an earlier slave).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	There are two methods to insure that the VLAN device operates
 | 
						|
with the correct hardware address if all slaves are removed from a
 | 
						|
bond interface:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	1. Remove all VLAN interfaces then recreate them
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	2. Set the bonding interface's hardware address so that it
 | 
						|
matches the hardware address of the VLAN interfaces.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Note that changing a VLAN interface's HW address would set the
 | 
						|
underlying device -- i.e. the bonding interface -- to promiscuous
 | 
						|
mode, which might not be what you want.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
7. Link Monitoring
 | 
						|
==================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The bonding driver at present supports two schemes for
 | 
						|
monitoring a slave device's link state: the ARP monitor and the MII
 | 
						|
monitor.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	At the present time, due to implementation restrictions in the
 | 
						|
bonding driver itself, it is not possible to enable both ARP and MII
 | 
						|
monitoring simultaneously.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
7.1 ARP Monitor Operation
 | 
						|
-------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The ARP monitor operates as its name suggests: it sends ARP
 | 
						|
queries to one or more designated peer systems on the network, and
 | 
						|
uses the response as an indication that the link is operating.  This
 | 
						|
gives some assurance that traffic is actually flowing to and from one
 | 
						|
or more peers on the local network.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The ARP monitor relies on the device driver itself to verify
 | 
						|
that traffic is flowing.  In particular, the driver must keep up to
 | 
						|
date the last receive time, dev->last_rx.  Drivers that use NETIF_F_LLTX
 | 
						|
flag must also update netdev_queue->trans_start.  If they do not, then the
 | 
						|
ARP monitor will immediately fail any slaves using that driver, and
 | 
						|
those slaves will stay down.  If networking monitoring (tcpdump, etc)
 | 
						|
shows the ARP requests and replies on the network, then it may be that
 | 
						|
your device driver is not updating last_rx and trans_start.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
7.2 Configuring Multiple ARP Targets
 | 
						|
------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	While ARP monitoring can be done with just one target, it can
 | 
						|
be useful in a High Availability setup to have several targets to
 | 
						|
monitor.  In the case of just one target, the target itself may go
 | 
						|
down or have a problem making it unresponsive to ARP requests.  Having
 | 
						|
an additional target (or several) increases the reliability of the ARP
 | 
						|
monitoring.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Multiple ARP targets must be separated by commas as follows:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# example options for ARP monitoring with three targets
 | 
						|
alias bond0 bonding
 | 
						|
options bond0 arp_interval=60 arp_ip_target=192.168.0.1,192.168.0.3,192.168.0.9
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For just a single target the options would resemble:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# example options for ARP monitoring with one target
 | 
						|
alias bond0 bonding
 | 
						|
options bond0 arp_interval=60 arp_ip_target=192.168.0.100
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
7.3 MII Monitor Operation
 | 
						|
-------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The MII monitor monitors only the carrier state of the local
 | 
						|
network interface.  It accomplishes this in one of three ways: by
 | 
						|
depending upon the device driver to maintain its carrier state, by
 | 
						|
querying the device's MII registers, or by making an ethtool query to
 | 
						|
the device.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If the use_carrier module parameter is 1 (the default value),
 | 
						|
then the MII monitor will rely on the driver for carrier state
 | 
						|
information (via the netif_carrier subsystem).  As explained in the
 | 
						|
use_carrier parameter information, above, if the MII monitor fails to
 | 
						|
detect carrier loss on the device (e.g., when the cable is physically
 | 
						|
disconnected), it may be that the driver does not support
 | 
						|
netif_carrier.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If use_carrier is 0, then the MII monitor will first query the
 | 
						|
device's (via ioctl) MII registers and check the link state.  If that
 | 
						|
request fails (not just that it returns carrier down), then the MII
 | 
						|
monitor will make an ethtool ETHOOL_GLINK request to attempt to obtain
 | 
						|
the same information.  If both methods fail (i.e., the driver either
 | 
						|
does not support or had some error in processing both the MII register
 | 
						|
and ethtool requests), then the MII monitor will assume the link is
 | 
						|
up.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
8. Potential Sources of Trouble
 | 
						|
===============================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
8.1 Adventures in Routing
 | 
						|
-------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	When bonding is configured, it is important that the slave
 | 
						|
devices not have routes that supersede routes of the master (or,
 | 
						|
generally, not have routes at all).  For example, suppose the bonding
 | 
						|
device bond0 has two slaves, eth0 and eth1, and the routing table is
 | 
						|
as follows:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Kernel IP routing table
 | 
						|
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
 | 
						|
10.0.0.0        0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U        40 0          0 eth0
 | 
						|
10.0.0.0        0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U        40 0          0 eth1
 | 
						|
10.0.0.0        0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U        40 0          0 bond0
 | 
						|
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U        40 0          0 lo
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This routing configuration will likely still update the
 | 
						|
receive/transmit times in the driver (needed by the ARP monitor), but
 | 
						|
may bypass the bonding driver (because outgoing traffic to, in this
 | 
						|
case, another host on network 10 would use eth0 or eth1 before bond0).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The ARP monitor (and ARP itself) may become confused by this
 | 
						|
configuration, because ARP requests (generated by the ARP monitor)
 | 
						|
will be sent on one interface (bond0), but the corresponding reply
 | 
						|
will arrive on a different interface (eth0).  This reply looks to ARP
 | 
						|
as an unsolicited ARP reply (because ARP matches replies on an
 | 
						|
interface basis), and is discarded.  The MII monitor is not affected
 | 
						|
by the state of the routing table.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The solution here is simply to insure that slaves do not have
 | 
						|
routes of their own, and if for some reason they must, those routes do
 | 
						|
not supersede routes of their master.  This should generally be the
 | 
						|
case, but unusual configurations or errant manual or automatic static
 | 
						|
route additions may cause trouble.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
8.2 Ethernet Device Renaming
 | 
						|
----------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	On systems with network configuration scripts that do not
 | 
						|
associate physical devices directly with network interface names (so
 | 
						|
that the same physical device always has the same "ethX" name), it may
 | 
						|
be necessary to add some special logic to config files in
 | 
						|
/etc/modprobe.d/.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For example, given a modules.conf containing the following:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
alias bond0 bonding
 | 
						|
options bond0 mode=some-mode miimon=50
 | 
						|
alias eth0 tg3
 | 
						|
alias eth1 tg3
 | 
						|
alias eth2 e1000
 | 
						|
alias eth3 e1000
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If neither eth0 and eth1 are slaves to bond0, then when the
 | 
						|
bond0 interface comes up, the devices may end up reordered.  This
 | 
						|
happens because bonding is loaded first, then its slave device's
 | 
						|
drivers are loaded next.  Since no other drivers have been loaded,
 | 
						|
when the e1000 driver loads, it will receive eth0 and eth1 for its
 | 
						|
devices, but the bonding configuration tries to enslave eth2 and eth3
 | 
						|
(which may later be assigned to the tg3 devices).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Adding the following:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
add above bonding e1000 tg3
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	causes modprobe to load e1000 then tg3, in that order, when
 | 
						|
bonding is loaded.  This command is fully documented in the
 | 
						|
modules.conf manual page.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	On systems utilizing modprobe an equivalent problem can occur.
 | 
						|
In this case, the following can be added to config files in
 | 
						|
/etc/modprobe.d/ as:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
softdep bonding pre: tg3 e1000
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This will load tg3 and e1000 modules before loading the bonding one.
 | 
						|
Full documentation on this can be found in the modprobe.d and modprobe
 | 
						|
manual pages.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
8.3. Painfully Slow Or No Failed Link Detection By Miimon
 | 
						|
---------------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	By default, bonding enables the use_carrier option, which
 | 
						|
instructs bonding to trust the driver to maintain carrier state.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	As discussed in the options section, above, some drivers do
 | 
						|
not support the netif_carrier_on/_off link state tracking system.
 | 
						|
With use_carrier enabled, bonding will always see these links as up,
 | 
						|
regardless of their actual state.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Additionally, other drivers do support netif_carrier, but do
 | 
						|
not maintain it in real time, e.g., only polling the link state at
 | 
						|
some fixed interval.  In this case, miimon will detect failures, but
 | 
						|
only after some long period of time has expired.  If it appears that
 | 
						|
miimon is very slow in detecting link failures, try specifying
 | 
						|
use_carrier=0 to see if that improves the failure detection time.  If
 | 
						|
it does, then it may be that the driver checks the carrier state at a
 | 
						|
fixed interval, but does not cache the MII register values (so the
 | 
						|
use_carrier=0 method of querying the registers directly works).  If
 | 
						|
use_carrier=0 does not improve the failover, then the driver may cache
 | 
						|
the registers, or the problem may be elsewhere.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Also, remember that miimon only checks for the device's
 | 
						|
carrier state.  It has no way to determine the state of devices on or
 | 
						|
beyond other ports of a switch, or if a switch is refusing to pass
 | 
						|
traffic while still maintaining carrier on.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
9. SNMP agents
 | 
						|
===============
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If running SNMP agents, the bonding driver should be loaded
 | 
						|
before any network drivers participating in a bond.  This requirement
 | 
						|
is due to the interface index (ipAdEntIfIndex) being associated to
 | 
						|
the first interface found with a given IP address.  That is, there is
 | 
						|
only one ipAdEntIfIndex for each IP address.  For example, if eth0 and
 | 
						|
eth1 are slaves of bond0 and the driver for eth0 is loaded before the
 | 
						|
bonding driver, the interface for the IP address will be associated
 | 
						|
with the eth0 interface.  This configuration is shown below, the IP
 | 
						|
address 192.168.1.1 has an interface index of 2 which indexes to eth0
 | 
						|
in the ifDescr table (ifDescr.2).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.1 = lo
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.2 = eth0
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.3 = eth1
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.4 = eth2
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.5 = eth3
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.6 = bond0
 | 
						|
     ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.10.10.10.10 = 5
 | 
						|
     ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.192.168.1.1 = 2
 | 
						|
     ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.10.74.20.94 = 4
 | 
						|
     ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.127.0.0.1 = 1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This problem is avoided by loading the bonding driver before
 | 
						|
any network drivers participating in a bond.  Below is an example of
 | 
						|
loading the bonding driver first, the IP address 192.168.1.1 is
 | 
						|
correctly associated with ifDescr.2.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.1 = lo
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.2 = bond0
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.3 = eth0
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.4 = eth1
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.5 = eth2
 | 
						|
     interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.6 = eth3
 | 
						|
     ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.10.10.10.10 = 6
 | 
						|
     ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.192.168.1.1 = 2
 | 
						|
     ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.10.74.20.94 = 5
 | 
						|
     ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.127.0.0.1 = 1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	While some distributions may not report the interface name in
 | 
						|
ifDescr, the association between the IP address and IfIndex remains
 | 
						|
and SNMP functions such as Interface_Scan_Next will report that
 | 
						|
association.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
10. Promiscuous mode
 | 
						|
====================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	When running network monitoring tools, e.g., tcpdump, it is
 | 
						|
common to enable promiscuous mode on the device, so that all traffic
 | 
						|
is seen (instead of seeing only traffic destined for the local host).
 | 
						|
The bonding driver handles promiscuous mode changes to the bonding
 | 
						|
master device (e.g., bond0), and propagates the setting to the slave
 | 
						|
devices.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For the balance-rr, balance-xor, broadcast, and 802.3ad modes,
 | 
						|
the promiscuous mode setting is propagated to all slaves.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For the active-backup, balance-tlb and balance-alb modes, the
 | 
						|
promiscuous mode setting is propagated only to the active slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For balance-tlb mode, the active slave is the slave currently
 | 
						|
receiving inbound traffic.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For balance-alb mode, the active slave is the slave used as a
 | 
						|
"primary."  This slave is used for mode-specific control traffic, for
 | 
						|
sending to peers that are unassigned or if the load is unbalanced.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For the active-backup, balance-tlb and balance-alb modes, when
 | 
						|
the active slave changes (e.g., due to a link failure), the
 | 
						|
promiscuous setting will be propagated to the new active slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
11. Configuring Bonding for High Availability
 | 
						|
=============================================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	High Availability refers to configurations that provide
 | 
						|
maximum network availability by having redundant or backup devices,
 | 
						|
links or switches between the host and the rest of the world.  The
 | 
						|
goal is to provide the maximum availability of network connectivity
 | 
						|
(i.e., the network always works), even though other configurations
 | 
						|
could provide higher throughput.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
11.1 High Availability in a Single Switch Topology
 | 
						|
--------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If two hosts (or a host and a single switch) are directly
 | 
						|
connected via multiple physical links, then there is no availability
 | 
						|
penalty to optimizing for maximum bandwidth.  In this case, there is
 | 
						|
only one switch (or peer), so if it fails, there is no alternative
 | 
						|
access to fail over to.  Additionally, the bonding load balance modes
 | 
						|
support link monitoring of their members, so if individual links fail,
 | 
						|
the load will be rebalanced across the remaining devices.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	See Section 12, "Configuring Bonding for Maximum Throughput"
 | 
						|
for information on configuring bonding with one peer device.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
11.2 High Availability in a Multiple Switch Topology
 | 
						|
----------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	With multiple switches, the configuration of bonding and the
 | 
						|
network changes dramatically.  In multiple switch topologies, there is
 | 
						|
a trade off between network availability and usable bandwidth.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Below is a sample network, configured to maximize the
 | 
						|
availability of the network:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
                |                                     |
 | 
						|
                |port3                           port3|
 | 
						|
          +-----+----+                          +-----+----+
 | 
						|
          |          |port2       ISL      port2|          |
 | 
						|
          | switch A +--------------------------+ switch B |
 | 
						|
          |          |                          |          |
 | 
						|
          +-----+----+                          +-----++---+
 | 
						|
                |port1                           port1|
 | 
						|
                |             +-------+               |
 | 
						|
                +-------------+ host1 +---------------+
 | 
						|
                         eth0 +-------+ eth1
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In this configuration, there is a link between the two
 | 
						|
switches (ISL, or inter switch link), and multiple ports connecting to
 | 
						|
the outside world ("port3" on each switch).  There is no technical
 | 
						|
reason that this could not be extended to a third switch.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
11.2.1 HA Bonding Mode Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
 | 
						|
-------------------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In a topology such as the example above, the active-backup and
 | 
						|
broadcast modes are the only useful bonding modes when optimizing for
 | 
						|
availability; the other modes require all links to terminate on the
 | 
						|
same peer for them to behave rationally.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
active-backup: This is generally the preferred mode, particularly if
 | 
						|
	the switches have an ISL and play together well.  If the
 | 
						|
	network configuration is such that one switch is specifically
 | 
						|
	a backup switch (e.g., has lower capacity, higher cost, etc),
 | 
						|
	then the primary option can be used to insure that the
 | 
						|
	preferred link is always used when it is available.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
broadcast: This mode is really a special purpose mode, and is suitable
 | 
						|
	only for very specific needs.  For example, if the two
 | 
						|
	switches are not connected (no ISL), and the networks beyond
 | 
						|
	them are totally independent.  In this case, if it is
 | 
						|
	necessary for some specific one-way traffic to reach both
 | 
						|
	independent networks, then the broadcast mode may be suitable.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
11.2.2 HA Link Monitoring Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
 | 
						|
----------------------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The choice of link monitoring ultimately depends upon your
 | 
						|
switch.  If the switch can reliably fail ports in response to other
 | 
						|
failures, then either the MII or ARP monitors should work.  For
 | 
						|
example, in the above example, if the "port3" link fails at the remote
 | 
						|
end, the MII monitor has no direct means to detect this.  The ARP
 | 
						|
monitor could be configured with a target at the remote end of port3,
 | 
						|
thus detecting that failure without switch support.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In general, however, in a multiple switch topology, the ARP
 | 
						|
monitor can provide a higher level of reliability in detecting end to
 | 
						|
end connectivity failures (which may be caused by the failure of any
 | 
						|
individual component to pass traffic for any reason).  Additionally,
 | 
						|
the ARP monitor should be configured with multiple targets (at least
 | 
						|
one for each switch in the network).  This will insure that,
 | 
						|
regardless of which switch is active, the ARP monitor has a suitable
 | 
						|
target to query.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Note, also, that of late many switches now support a functionality
 | 
						|
generally referred to as "trunk failover."  This is a feature of the
 | 
						|
switch that causes the link state of a particular switch port to be set
 | 
						|
down (or up) when the state of another switch port goes down (or up).
 | 
						|
Its purpose is to propagate link failures from logically "exterior" ports
 | 
						|
to the logically "interior" ports that bonding is able to monitor via
 | 
						|
miimon.  Availability and configuration for trunk failover varies by
 | 
						|
switch, but this can be a viable alternative to the ARP monitor when using
 | 
						|
suitable switches.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
12. Configuring Bonding for Maximum Throughput
 | 
						|
==============================================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
12.1 Maximizing Throughput in a Single Switch Topology
 | 
						|
------------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In a single switch configuration, the best method to maximize
 | 
						|
throughput depends upon the application and network environment.  The
 | 
						|
various load balancing modes each have strengths and weaknesses in
 | 
						|
different environments, as detailed below.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For this discussion, we will break down the topologies into
 | 
						|
two categories.  Depending upon the destination of most traffic, we
 | 
						|
categorize them into either "gatewayed" or "local" configurations.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In a gatewayed configuration, the "switch" is acting primarily
 | 
						|
as a router, and the majority of traffic passes through this router to
 | 
						|
other networks.  An example would be the following:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
     +----------+                     +----------+
 | 
						|
     |          |eth0            port1|          | to other networks
 | 
						|
     | Host A   +---------------------+ router   +------------------->
 | 
						|
     |          +---------------------+          | Hosts B and C are out
 | 
						|
     |          |eth1            port2|          | here somewhere
 | 
						|
     +----------+                     +----------+
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The router may be a dedicated router device, or another host
 | 
						|
acting as a gateway.  For our discussion, the important point is that
 | 
						|
the majority of traffic from Host A will pass through the router to
 | 
						|
some other network before reaching its final destination.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In a gatewayed network configuration, although Host A may
 | 
						|
communicate with many other systems, all of its traffic will be sent
 | 
						|
and received via one other peer on the local network, the router.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Note that the case of two systems connected directly via
 | 
						|
multiple physical links is, for purposes of configuring bonding, the
 | 
						|
same as a gatewayed configuration.  In that case, it happens that all
 | 
						|
traffic is destined for the "gateway" itself, not some other network
 | 
						|
beyond the gateway.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In a local configuration, the "switch" is acting primarily as
 | 
						|
a switch, and the majority of traffic passes through this switch to
 | 
						|
reach other stations on the same network.  An example would be the
 | 
						|
following:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
    +----------+            +----------+       +--------+
 | 
						|
    |          |eth0   port1|          +-------+ Host B |
 | 
						|
    |  Host A  +------------+  switch  |port3  +--------+
 | 
						|
    |          +------------+          |                  +--------+
 | 
						|
    |          |eth1   port2|          +------------------+ Host C |
 | 
						|
    +----------+            +----------+port4             +--------+
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Again, the switch may be a dedicated switch device, or another
 | 
						|
host acting as a gateway.  For our discussion, the important point is
 | 
						|
that the majority of traffic from Host A is destined for other hosts
 | 
						|
on the same local network (Hosts B and C in the above example).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In summary, in a gatewayed configuration, traffic to and from
 | 
						|
the bonded device will be to the same MAC level peer on the network
 | 
						|
(the gateway itself, i.e., the router), regardless of its final
 | 
						|
destination.  In a local configuration, traffic flows directly to and
 | 
						|
from the final destinations, thus, each destination (Host B, Host C)
 | 
						|
will be addressed directly by their individual MAC addresses.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This distinction between a gatewayed and a local network
 | 
						|
configuration is important because many of the load balancing modes
 | 
						|
available use the MAC addresses of the local network source and
 | 
						|
destination to make load balancing decisions.  The behavior of each
 | 
						|
mode is described below.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
12.1.1 MT Bonding Mode Selection for Single Switch Topology
 | 
						|
-----------------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This configuration is the easiest to set up and to understand,
 | 
						|
although you will have to decide which bonding mode best suits your
 | 
						|
needs.  The trade offs for each mode are detailed below:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
balance-rr: This mode is the only mode that will permit a single
 | 
						|
	TCP/IP connection to stripe traffic across multiple
 | 
						|
	interfaces. It is therefore the only mode that will allow a
 | 
						|
	single TCP/IP stream to utilize more than one interface's
 | 
						|
	worth of throughput.  This comes at a cost, however: the
 | 
						|
	striping generally results in peer systems receiving packets out
 | 
						|
	of order, causing TCP/IP's congestion control system to kick
 | 
						|
	in, often by retransmitting segments.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	It is possible to adjust TCP/IP's congestion limits by
 | 
						|
	altering the net.ipv4.tcp_reordering sysctl parameter.  The
 | 
						|
	usual default value is 3. But keep in mind TCP stack is able
 | 
						|
	to automatically increase this when it detects reorders.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Note that the fraction of packets that will be delivered out of
 | 
						|
	order is highly variable, and is unlikely to be zero.  The level
 | 
						|
	of reordering depends upon a variety of factors, including the
 | 
						|
	networking interfaces, the switch, and the topology of the
 | 
						|
	configuration.  Speaking in general terms, higher speed network
 | 
						|
	cards produce more reordering (due to factors such as packet
 | 
						|
	coalescing), and a "many to many" topology will reorder at a
 | 
						|
	higher rate than a "many slow to one fast" configuration.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Many switches do not support any modes that stripe traffic
 | 
						|
	(instead choosing a port based upon IP or MAC level addresses);
 | 
						|
	for those devices, traffic for a particular connection flowing
 | 
						|
	through the switch to a balance-rr bond will not utilize greater
 | 
						|
	than one interface's worth of bandwidth.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If you are utilizing protocols other than TCP/IP, UDP for
 | 
						|
	example, and your application can tolerate out of order
 | 
						|
	delivery, then this mode can allow for single stream datagram
 | 
						|
	performance that scales near linearly as interfaces are added
 | 
						|
	to the bond.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This mode requires the switch to have the appropriate ports
 | 
						|
	configured for "etherchannel" or "trunking."
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
active-backup: There is not much advantage in this network topology to
 | 
						|
	the active-backup mode, as the inactive backup devices are all
 | 
						|
	connected to the same peer as the primary.  In this case, a
 | 
						|
	load balancing mode (with link monitoring) will provide the
 | 
						|
	same level of network availability, but with increased
 | 
						|
	available bandwidth.  On the plus side, active-backup mode
 | 
						|
	does not require any configuration of the switch, so it may
 | 
						|
	have value if the hardware available does not support any of
 | 
						|
	the load balance modes.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
balance-xor: This mode will limit traffic such that packets destined
 | 
						|
	for specific peers will always be sent over the same
 | 
						|
	interface.  Since the destination is determined by the MAC
 | 
						|
	addresses involved, this mode works best in a "local" network
 | 
						|
	configuration (as described above), with destinations all on
 | 
						|
	the same local network.  This mode is likely to be suboptimal
 | 
						|
	if all your traffic is passed through a single router (i.e., a
 | 
						|
	"gatewayed" network configuration, as described above).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	As with balance-rr, the switch ports need to be configured for
 | 
						|
	"etherchannel" or "trunking."
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
broadcast: Like active-backup, there is not much advantage to this
 | 
						|
	mode in this type of network topology.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
802.3ad: This mode can be a good choice for this type of network
 | 
						|
	topology.  The 802.3ad mode is an IEEE standard, so all peers
 | 
						|
	that implement 802.3ad should interoperate well.  The 802.3ad
 | 
						|
	protocol includes automatic configuration of the aggregates,
 | 
						|
	so minimal manual configuration of the switch is needed
 | 
						|
	(typically only to designate that some set of devices is
 | 
						|
	available for 802.3ad).  The 802.3ad standard also mandates
 | 
						|
	that frames be delivered in order (within certain limits), so
 | 
						|
	in general single connections will not see misordering of
 | 
						|
	packets.  The 802.3ad mode does have some drawbacks: the
 | 
						|
	standard mandates that all devices in the aggregate operate at
 | 
						|
	the same speed and duplex.  Also, as with all bonding load
 | 
						|
	balance modes other than balance-rr, no single connection will
 | 
						|
	be able to utilize more than a single interface's worth of
 | 
						|
	bandwidth.  
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Additionally, the linux bonding 802.3ad implementation
 | 
						|
	distributes traffic by peer (using an XOR of MAC addresses
 | 
						|
	and packet type ID), so in a "gatewayed" configuration, all
 | 
						|
	outgoing traffic will generally use the same device.  Incoming
 | 
						|
	traffic may also end up on a single device, but that is
 | 
						|
	dependent upon the balancing policy of the peer's 802.3ad
 | 
						|
	implementation.  In a "local" configuration, traffic will be
 | 
						|
	distributed across the devices in the bond.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Finally, the 802.3ad mode mandates the use of the MII monitor,
 | 
						|
	therefore, the ARP monitor is not available in this mode.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
balance-tlb: The balance-tlb mode balances outgoing traffic by peer.
 | 
						|
	Since the balancing is done according to MAC address, in a
 | 
						|
	"gatewayed" configuration (as described above), this mode will
 | 
						|
	send all traffic across a single device.  However, in a
 | 
						|
	"local" network configuration, this mode balances multiple
 | 
						|
	local network peers across devices in a vaguely intelligent
 | 
						|
	manner (not a simple XOR as in balance-xor or 802.3ad mode),
 | 
						|
	so that mathematically unlucky MAC addresses (i.e., ones that
 | 
						|
	XOR to the same value) will not all "bunch up" on a single
 | 
						|
	interface.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Unlike 802.3ad, interfaces may be of differing speeds, and no
 | 
						|
	special switch configuration is required.  On the down side,
 | 
						|
	in this mode all incoming traffic arrives over a single
 | 
						|
	interface, this mode requires certain ethtool support in the
 | 
						|
	network device driver of the slave interfaces, and the ARP
 | 
						|
	monitor is not available.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
balance-alb: This mode is everything that balance-tlb is, and more.
 | 
						|
	It has all of the features (and restrictions) of balance-tlb,
 | 
						|
	and will also balance incoming traffic from local network
 | 
						|
	peers (as described in the Bonding Module Options section,
 | 
						|
	above).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The only additional down side to this mode is that the network
 | 
						|
	device driver must support changing the hardware address while
 | 
						|
	the device is open.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
12.1.2 MT Link Monitoring for Single Switch Topology
 | 
						|
----------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The choice of link monitoring may largely depend upon which
 | 
						|
mode you choose to use.  The more advanced load balancing modes do not
 | 
						|
support the use of the ARP monitor, and are thus restricted to using
 | 
						|
the MII monitor (which does not provide as high a level of end to end
 | 
						|
assurance as the ARP monitor).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
12.2 Maximum Throughput in a Multiple Switch Topology
 | 
						|
-----------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Multiple switches may be utilized to optimize for throughput
 | 
						|
when they are configured in parallel as part of an isolated network
 | 
						|
between two or more systems, for example:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
                       +-----------+
 | 
						|
                       |  Host A   | 
 | 
						|
                       +-+---+---+-+
 | 
						|
                         |   |   |
 | 
						|
                +--------+   |   +---------+
 | 
						|
                |            |             |
 | 
						|
         +------+---+  +-----+----+  +-----+----+
 | 
						|
         | Switch A |  | Switch B |  | Switch C |
 | 
						|
         +------+---+  +-----+----+  +-----+----+
 | 
						|
                |            |             |
 | 
						|
                +--------+   |   +---------+
 | 
						|
                         |   |   |
 | 
						|
                       +-+---+---+-+
 | 
						|
                       |  Host B   | 
 | 
						|
                       +-----------+
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In this configuration, the switches are isolated from one
 | 
						|
another.  One reason to employ a topology such as this is for an
 | 
						|
isolated network with many hosts (a cluster configured for high
 | 
						|
performance, for example), using multiple smaller switches can be more
 | 
						|
cost effective than a single larger switch, e.g., on a network with 24
 | 
						|
hosts, three 24 port switches can be significantly less expensive than
 | 
						|
a single 72 port switch.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If access beyond the network is required, an individual host
 | 
						|
can be equipped with an additional network device connected to an
 | 
						|
external network; this host then additionally acts as a gateway.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
12.2.1 MT Bonding Mode Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
 | 
						|
-------------------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In actual practice, the bonding mode typically employed in
 | 
						|
configurations of this type is balance-rr.  Historically, in this
 | 
						|
network configuration, the usual caveats about out of order packet
 | 
						|
delivery are mitigated by the use of network adapters that do not do
 | 
						|
any kind of packet coalescing (via the use of NAPI, or because the
 | 
						|
device itself does not generate interrupts until some number of
 | 
						|
packets has arrived).  When employed in this fashion, the balance-rr
 | 
						|
mode allows individual connections between two hosts to effectively
 | 
						|
utilize greater than one interface's bandwidth.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
12.2.2 MT Link Monitoring for Multiple Switch Topology
 | 
						|
------------------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Again, in actual practice, the MII monitor is most often used
 | 
						|
in this configuration, as performance is given preference over
 | 
						|
availability.  The ARP monitor will function in this topology, but its
 | 
						|
advantages over the MII monitor are mitigated by the volume of probes
 | 
						|
needed as the number of systems involved grows (remember that each
 | 
						|
host in the network is configured with bonding).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
13. Switch Behavior Issues
 | 
						|
==========================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
13.1 Link Establishment and Failover Delays
 | 
						|
-------------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Some switches exhibit undesirable behavior with regard to the
 | 
						|
timing of link up and down reporting by the switch.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	First, when a link comes up, some switches may indicate that
 | 
						|
the link is up (carrier available), but not pass traffic over the
 | 
						|
interface for some period of time.  This delay is typically due to
 | 
						|
some type of autonegotiation or routing protocol, but may also occur
 | 
						|
during switch initialization (e.g., during recovery after a switch
 | 
						|
failure).  If you find this to be a problem, specify an appropriate
 | 
						|
value to the updelay bonding module option to delay the use of the
 | 
						|
relevant interface(s).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Second, some switches may "bounce" the link state one or more
 | 
						|
times while a link is changing state.  This occurs most commonly while
 | 
						|
the switch is initializing.  Again, an appropriate updelay value may
 | 
						|
help.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Note that when a bonding interface has no active links, the
 | 
						|
driver will immediately reuse the first link that goes up, even if the
 | 
						|
updelay parameter has been specified (the updelay is ignored in this
 | 
						|
case).  If there are slave interfaces waiting for the updelay timeout
 | 
						|
to expire, the interface that first went into that state will be
 | 
						|
immediately reused.  This reduces down time of the network if the
 | 
						|
value of updelay has been overestimated, and since this occurs only in
 | 
						|
cases with no connectivity, there is no additional penalty for
 | 
						|
ignoring the updelay.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In addition to the concerns about switch timings, if your
 | 
						|
switches take a long time to go into backup mode, it may be desirable
 | 
						|
to not activate a backup interface immediately after a link goes down.
 | 
						|
Failover may be delayed via the downdelay bonding module option.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
13.2 Duplicated Incoming Packets
 | 
						|
--------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	NOTE: Starting with version 3.0.2, the bonding driver has logic to
 | 
						|
suppress duplicate packets, which should largely eliminate this problem.
 | 
						|
The following description is kept for reference.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	It is not uncommon to observe a short burst of duplicated
 | 
						|
traffic when the bonding device is first used, or after it has been
 | 
						|
idle for some period of time.  This is most easily observed by issuing
 | 
						|
a "ping" to some other host on the network, and noticing that the
 | 
						|
output from ping flags duplicates (typically one per slave).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For example, on a bond in active-backup mode with five slaves
 | 
						|
all connected to one switch, the output may appear as follows:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# ping -n 10.0.4.2
 | 
						|
PING 10.0.4.2 (10.0.4.2) from 10.0.3.10 : 56(84) bytes of data.
 | 
						|
64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.7 ms
 | 
						|
64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.8 ms (DUP!)
 | 
						|
64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.8 ms (DUP!)
 | 
						|
64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.8 ms (DUP!)
 | 
						|
64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.8 ms (DUP!)
 | 
						|
64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.216 ms
 | 
						|
64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.267 ms
 | 
						|
64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.222 ms
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This is not due to an error in the bonding driver, rather, it
 | 
						|
is a side effect of how many switches update their MAC forwarding
 | 
						|
tables.  Initially, the switch does not associate the MAC address in
 | 
						|
the packet with a particular switch port, and so it may send the
 | 
						|
traffic to all ports until its MAC forwarding table is updated.  Since
 | 
						|
the interfaces attached to the bond may occupy multiple ports on a
 | 
						|
single switch, when the switch (temporarily) floods the traffic to all
 | 
						|
ports, the bond device receives multiple copies of the same packet
 | 
						|
(one per slave device).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The duplicated packet behavior is switch dependent, some
 | 
						|
switches exhibit this, and some do not.  On switches that display this
 | 
						|
behavior, it can be induced by clearing the MAC forwarding table (on
 | 
						|
most Cisco switches, the privileged command "clear mac address-table
 | 
						|
dynamic" will accomplish this).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
14. Hardware Specific Considerations
 | 
						|
====================================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This section contains additional information for configuring
 | 
						|
bonding on specific hardware platforms, or for interfacing bonding
 | 
						|
with particular switches or other devices.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
14.1 IBM BladeCenter
 | 
						|
--------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This applies to the JS20 and similar systems.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	On the JS20 blades, the bonding driver supports only
 | 
						|
balance-rr, active-backup, balance-tlb and balance-alb modes.  This is
 | 
						|
largely due to the network topology inside the BladeCenter, detailed
 | 
						|
below.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
JS20 network adapter information
 | 
						|
--------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	All JS20s come with two Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet ports
 | 
						|
integrated on the planar (that's "motherboard" in IBM-speak).  In the
 | 
						|
BladeCenter chassis, the eth0 port of all JS20 blades is hard wired to
 | 
						|
I/O Module #1; similarly, all eth1 ports are wired to I/O Module #2.
 | 
						|
An add-on Broadcom daughter card can be installed on a JS20 to provide
 | 
						|
two more Gigabit Ethernet ports.  These ports, eth2 and eth3, are
 | 
						|
wired to I/O Modules 3 and 4, respectively.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Each I/O Module may contain either a switch or a passthrough
 | 
						|
module (which allows ports to be directly connected to an external
 | 
						|
switch).  Some bonding modes require a specific BladeCenter internal
 | 
						|
network topology in order to function; these are detailed below.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Additional BladeCenter-specific networking information can be
 | 
						|
found in two IBM Redbooks (www.ibm.com/redbooks):
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
"IBM eServer BladeCenter Networking Options"
 | 
						|
"IBM eServer BladeCenter Layer 2-7 Network Switching"
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
BladeCenter networking configuration
 | 
						|
------------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Because a BladeCenter can be configured in a very large number
 | 
						|
of ways, this discussion will be confined to describing basic
 | 
						|
configurations.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Normally, Ethernet Switch Modules (ESMs) are used in I/O
 | 
						|
modules 1 and 2.  In this configuration, the eth0 and eth1 ports of a
 | 
						|
JS20 will be connected to different internal switches (in the
 | 
						|
respective I/O modules).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	A passthrough module (OPM or CPM, optical or copper,
 | 
						|
passthrough module) connects the I/O module directly to an external
 | 
						|
switch.  By using PMs in I/O module #1 and #2, the eth0 and eth1
 | 
						|
interfaces of a JS20 can be redirected to the outside world and
 | 
						|
connected to a common external switch.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Depending upon the mix of ESMs and PMs, the network will
 | 
						|
appear to bonding as either a single switch topology (all PMs) or as a
 | 
						|
multiple switch topology (one or more ESMs, zero or more PMs).  It is
 | 
						|
also possible to connect ESMs together, resulting in a configuration
 | 
						|
much like the example in "High Availability in a Multiple Switch
 | 
						|
Topology," above.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Requirements for specific modes
 | 
						|
-------------------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The balance-rr mode requires the use of passthrough modules
 | 
						|
for devices in the bond, all connected to an common external switch.
 | 
						|
That switch must be configured for "etherchannel" or "trunking" on the
 | 
						|
appropriate ports, as is usual for balance-rr.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The balance-alb and balance-tlb modes will function with
 | 
						|
either switch modules or passthrough modules (or a mix).  The only
 | 
						|
specific requirement for these modes is that all network interfaces
 | 
						|
must be able to reach all destinations for traffic sent over the
 | 
						|
bonding device (i.e., the network must converge at some point outside
 | 
						|
the BladeCenter).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The active-backup mode has no additional requirements.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Link monitoring issues
 | 
						|
----------------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	When an Ethernet Switch Module is in place, only the ARP
 | 
						|
monitor will reliably detect link loss to an external switch.  This is
 | 
						|
nothing unusual, but examination of the BladeCenter cabinet would
 | 
						|
suggest that the "external" network ports are the ethernet ports for
 | 
						|
the system, when it fact there is a switch between these "external"
 | 
						|
ports and the devices on the JS20 system itself.  The MII monitor is
 | 
						|
only able to detect link failures between the ESM and the JS20 system.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	When a passthrough module is in place, the MII monitor does
 | 
						|
detect failures to the "external" port, which is then directly
 | 
						|
connected to the JS20 system.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Other concerns
 | 
						|
--------------
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The Serial Over LAN (SoL) link is established over the primary
 | 
						|
ethernet (eth0) only, therefore, any loss of link to eth0 will result
 | 
						|
in losing your SoL connection.  It will not fail over with other
 | 
						|
network traffic, as the SoL system is beyond the control of the
 | 
						|
bonding driver.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	It may be desirable to disable spanning tree on the switch
 | 
						|
(either the internal Ethernet Switch Module, or an external switch) to
 | 
						|
avoid fail-over delay issues when using bonding.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	
 | 
						|
15. Frequently Asked Questions
 | 
						|
==============================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
1.  Is it SMP safe?
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Yes. The old 2.0.xx channel bonding patch was not SMP safe.
 | 
						|
The new driver was designed to be SMP safe from the start.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
2.  What type of cards will work with it?
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Any Ethernet type cards (you can even mix cards - a Intel
 | 
						|
EtherExpress PRO/100 and a 3com 3c905b, for example).  For most modes,
 | 
						|
devices need not be of the same speed.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Starting with version 3.2.1, bonding also supports Infiniband
 | 
						|
slaves in active-backup mode.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
3.  How many bonding devices can I have?
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	There is no limit.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
4.  How many slaves can a bonding device have?
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This is limited only by the number of network interfaces Linux
 | 
						|
supports and/or the number of network cards you can place in your
 | 
						|
system.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
5.  What happens when a slave link dies?
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If link monitoring is enabled, then the failing device will be
 | 
						|
disabled.  The active-backup mode will fail over to a backup link, and
 | 
						|
other modes will ignore the failed link.  The link will continue to be
 | 
						|
monitored, and should it recover, it will rejoin the bond (in whatever
 | 
						|
manner is appropriate for the mode). See the sections on High
 | 
						|
Availability and the documentation for each mode for additional
 | 
						|
information.
 | 
						|
	
 | 
						|
	Link monitoring can be enabled via either the miimon or
 | 
						|
arp_interval parameters (described in the module parameters section,
 | 
						|
above).  In general, miimon monitors the carrier state as sensed by
 | 
						|
the underlying network device, and the arp monitor (arp_interval)
 | 
						|
monitors connectivity to another host on the local network.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If no link monitoring is configured, the bonding driver will
 | 
						|
be unable to detect link failures, and will assume that all links are
 | 
						|
always available.  This will likely result in lost packets, and a
 | 
						|
resulting degradation of performance.  The precise performance loss
 | 
						|
depends upon the bonding mode and network configuration.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
6.  Can bonding be used for High Availability?
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Yes.  See the section on High Availability for details.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
7.  Which switches/systems does it work with?
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The full answer to this depends upon the desired mode.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In the basic balance modes (balance-rr and balance-xor), it
 | 
						|
works with any system that supports etherchannel (also called
 | 
						|
trunking).  Most managed switches currently available have such
 | 
						|
support, and many unmanaged switches as well.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The advanced balance modes (balance-tlb and balance-alb) do
 | 
						|
not have special switch requirements, but do need device drivers that
 | 
						|
support specific features (described in the appropriate section under
 | 
						|
module parameters, above).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	In 802.3ad mode, it works with systems that support IEEE
 | 
						|
802.3ad Dynamic Link Aggregation.  Most managed and many unmanaged
 | 
						|
switches currently available support 802.3ad.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
        The active-backup mode should work with any Layer-II switch.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
8.  Where does a bonding device get its MAC address from?
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	When using slave devices that have fixed MAC addresses, or when
 | 
						|
the fail_over_mac option is enabled, the bonding device's MAC address is
 | 
						|
the MAC address of the active slave.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	For other configurations, if not explicitly configured (with
 | 
						|
ifconfig or ip link), the MAC address of the bonding device is taken from
 | 
						|
its first slave device.  This MAC address is then passed to all following
 | 
						|
slaves and remains persistent (even if the first slave is removed) until
 | 
						|
the bonding device is brought down or reconfigured.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	If you wish to change the MAC address, you can set it with
 | 
						|
ifconfig or ip link:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# ifconfig bond0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# ip link set bond0 address 66:77:88:99:aa:bb
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The MAC address can be also changed by bringing down/up the
 | 
						|
device and then changing its slaves (or their order):
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
# ifconfig bond0 down ; modprobe -r bonding
 | 
						|
# ifconfig bond0 .... up
 | 
						|
# ifenslave bond0 eth...
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	This method will automatically take the address from the next
 | 
						|
slave that is added.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	To restore your slaves' MAC addresses, you need to detach them
 | 
						|
from the bond (`ifenslave -d bond0 eth0'). The bonding driver will
 | 
						|
then restore the MAC addresses that the slaves had before they were
 | 
						|
enslaved.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
16. Resources and Links
 | 
						|
=======================
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The latest version of the bonding driver can be found in the latest
 | 
						|
version of the linux kernel, found on http://kernel.org
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The latest version of this document can be found in the latest kernel
 | 
						|
source (named Documentation/networking/bonding.txt).
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Discussions regarding the usage of the bonding driver take place on the
 | 
						|
bonding-devel mailing list, hosted at sourceforge.net. If you have questions or
 | 
						|
problems, post them to the list.  The list address is:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
bonding-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The administrative interface (to subscribe or unsubscribe) can
 | 
						|
be found at:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bonding-devel
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	Discussions regarding the development of the bonding driver take place
 | 
						|
on the main Linux network mailing list, hosted at vger.kernel.org. The list
 | 
						|
address is:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
netdev@vger.kernel.org
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
	The administrative interface (to subscribe or unsubscribe) can
 | 
						|
be found at:
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html#netdev
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
Donald Becker's Ethernet Drivers and diag programs may be found at :
 | 
						|
 - http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.scyld.com/network/ 
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
You will also find a lot of information regarding Ethernet, NWay, MII,
 | 
						|
etc. at www.scyld.com.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
-- END --
 |