16 Network device bonding #

1. Start YaST as root and select System › Network Settings.

2. In the Network Settings, switch to the Overview tab, which shows the available devices.

3. Check if the Ethernet devices to be aggregate to a bonding device have an IP address assigned. If yes, change it:

   1. Select the device to change and click Edit.

   2. In the Address tab of the Network Card Setup dialog that opens, select the option No Link and IP Setup (Bond Ports).

   3. Click Next to return to the Overview tab in the Network Settings dialog.

4. To add a new bonding device:

   1. Click Add and set the Device Type to Bond. Proceed with Next.

   2. Select how to assign the IP address to the bonding device. Three methods are at your disposal:

      • No Link and IP Setup (Bond Ports)

      • Dynamic Address (with DHCP or Zeroconf)

      • Statically assigned IP Address

      Use the method that is appropriate for your environment. If Corosync manages virtual IP addresses, select Statically assigned IP Address and assign an IP address to the interface.

   3. Switch to the Bond Ports tab.

   4. To select the Ethernet devices that you want to include into the bond, activate the check box in front of the respective devices.

   5. Edit the Bond Driver Options. The following modes are available:

      balance-rr

      Provides load balancing and fault tolerance, at the cost of out-of-order packet transmission. This may cause delays, for example, for TCP reassembly.

      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.

   6. Make sure to add the parameter miimon=100 to Bond Driver Options. Without this parameter, the link is not checked regularly, so the bonding driver might continue to lose packets on a faulty link.

5. Click Next and leave YaST with OK to finish the configuration of the bonding device. YaST writes the configuration to /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-bondDEVICENUMBER.

If you prefer manual configuration instead, refer to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Administration Guide, chapter Basic Networking, section Hotplugging of bond ports.

1. Start YaST as root and select System › Network Settings.

2. In the Network Settings, switch to the Overview tab, which shows the already configured devices. If devices are already configured in a bond, the Note column shows it.

3. For each of the Ethernet devices that have been aggregated to a bonding device, execute the following steps:

   1. Select the device to change and click Edit. The Network Card Setup dialog opens.

   2. Switch to the General tab and make sure that Activate device is set to On Hotplug.

   3. Switch to the Hardware tab.

   4. For the Udev rules, click Change and select the BusID option.

   5. Click OK and Next to return to the Overview tab in the Network Settings dialog. If you click the Ethernet device entry now, the bottom pane shows the device's details, including the bus ID.

4. Click OK to confirm your changes and leave the network settings.