Network Device Bonding

Contents

11.1. Configuring Bonding Devices with YaST
11.2. For More Information

For many systems, it is desirable to implement network connections that comply to more than the standard data security or availability requirements of a typical ethernet device. In these cases, several ethernet devices can be aggregated to a single bonding device.

The configuration of the bonding device is done by means of bonding module options. The behavior is determined through the mode of the bonding device. By default, this is mode=active-backup, which means that a different slave device will become active if the active slave fails.

When using OpenAIS, the bonding device is not managed by the cluster software. Therefore, the bonding device must be configured on each cluster node that might possibly need to access the bonding device.

Configuring Bonding Devices with YaST

To configure a bonding device, use the following procedure:

Start YaST as root and select Network Devices+Network Settings.
Click Add to configure a new network card and change the Device Type to Bond. Proceed with Next.
Select how to assign the IP address to the bonding device. Three methods are at your disposal:
- No IP Address
- Dynamic Address (with DHCP or Zeroconf)
- Statically assigned IP Address
Use the method that is appropriate for your environment. If OpenAIS manages virtual IP addresses, select Statically assigned IP Address and assign a basic IP address to the interface.
Switch to the Bond Slaves tab.
To select the ethernet devices that need to be included into the bond, activate the check box in front of the relevant Bond Slave.
Edit the Bond Driver Options. The following modes are available:
balance-rr
Provides load balancing and fault tolerance.
active-backup
Provides fault tolerance.
balance-xor
Provides load balancing and fault tolerance.
broadcast
Provides fault tolerance
802.3ad
Provides dynamic link aggregation if supported by the connected switch.
balance-tlb
Provides load balancing for outgoing traffic.
balance-alb
Provides load balancing for incoming and outgoing traffic, if the network devices used allow the modifying of the network device's hardware address while in use.
Make sure that the parameter miimon=100 is added to Bond Driver Options. Without this parameter, the data integrity is not checked regularly.
Click Next and leave YaST with Ok to create the device.

For More Information

All modes, as well as many other options, are explained in detail in the Linux Ethernet Bonding Driver HOWTO, which can be found at /usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt once you have installed the package kernel-source.