Re: Linux NIC bonding
- From: "LS Cheng" <exriscer@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: dannorris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:33:44 +0100
Hi Dan
What mode do you use, 0, 1, 2.. etc? Sounds you have used 1 (active-backup).
This is what kernel doc says about it:
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 gratutious 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.
I have always used 0 in the past
Thanks
--
LSC
On Dec 12, 2007 6:22 AM, Dan Norris <dannorris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I'm building a cluster using Oracle Clusterware and have configured
> redundant pairs of NICs on the Linux servers using the Linux bonding module
> (active-passive). I know how to configure the Linux end of things and that's
> working fine. However, the switches used by this customer (they're Dell
> branded--not sure who really makes the guts) have been getting "confused" by
> bonding and our simple ping tests lose about 50% of the packets when we plug
> the redundant pairs into the two separate (trunked) switches.
>
> This is only peripherally related to Oracle--it's really a networking and
> server config issue, but I'm hoping that someone with more networking
> background than I have can explain what switch configuration will enable
> this to work properly. The customer has stated that this will never work
> (though I have done it before at other sites and it worked fine). The
> customer has stated that the Linux configuration must be two active NICs
> with a virtual IP and virtual MAC. I imagine that will work, but I'm not
> familiar with that configuration and I don't think Linux has native support
> for it, so it'd probably be a Broadcom or Intel software package. It's
> questionable how Oracle would view that from a support perspective (if they
> care at all).
>
> So, the question: Is there some "magical" switch setting that would
> possibly be missing in a fairly "default" configuration that might enable
> this to work properly? I figure it's a long shot asking a networking
> question on the Oracle list, but thanks for any pointers.
>
> Dan
>
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