Configuring network bonding
1 Environment #
This document applies to the following products and product versions:
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
2 Introduction #
Network bonding combines two or more network cards into a single bonding device to increase bandwidth or provide redundancy. The behavior of the bonding device is configured using bonding modes. The following bonding modes are available:
- ( )
Packets are transmitted in round-robin fashion from the first to the last available interface. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.
- ( )
Only one network interface is active. If it fails, a different interface becomes active. This is the default mode. Provides fault tolerance.
- ( )
Traffic is split between all available interfaces based on the number of interfaces included in the bonding device. Requires support from the switch. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.
- ( )
All traffic is broadcast on all interfaces. Requires support from the switch. Provides fault tolerance.
- ( )
Aggregates interfaces into groups that share the same speed and duplex settings. Requires
ethtool
support in the interface drivers, and a switch that supports and is configured for IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic link aggregation. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.- ( )
Adaptive transmit load balancing. Requires
ethtool
support in the interface drivers but not switch support. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.- ( )
Adaptive load balancing. Requires
ethtool
support in the interface drivers but not switch support. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing.
For a more detailed description of the modes, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt.
Bonding devices are made up of multiple real network cards. In most configurations, this means that you should only set up bonding in Dom0. To set up bonding in a VM Guest, you must have multiple network cards assigned to the VM Guest system.
balance-tlb
and
balance-alb
) unsupported by ibmveth
The bonding drivers in tlb
mode and alb
mode send Ethernet Loopback packets with both the source and destination MAC
addresses listed as the Virtual Ethernet MAC address. These packets are not
supported by Power firmware. Therefore, bonding modes 5 and 6 are unsupported
by ibmveth.
3 Requirements #
Network connection
Existing network cards to include in the bonding device
Basic understanding of networking and IP addresses
4 Configuring network bonding #
Start the graphical version of YaST, or run the command
yast2
to start YaST in text mode.Select
› .Select
and change the to , then select to open the menu.In the
tab, select how to assign an IP address to the bonding device:Do not use
. This option is only used for individual network cards that will be added to a bonding device.
In the
tab, select the network cards to include in the bonding device by activating the check boxes.From the
drop-down box, choose a bonding mode. The default mode isactive-backup
.Do not remove
miimon=100
. Without this parameter, data integrity is not checked regularly.Select
, then select to create the bonding device.Select F9 to close YaST.
or press
5 Next steps #
Hotplugging NICs into an existing network bond