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[linux-block.git] / Documentation / networking / bonding.rst
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3===================================
4Linux Ethernet Bonding Driver HOWTO
5===================================
00354cfb 6
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7Latest update: 27 April 2011
8
9Initial release: Thomas Davis <tadavis at lbl.gov>
10
11Corrections, HA extensions: 2000/10/03-15:
1da177e4 12
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13 - Willy Tarreau <willy at meta-x.org>
14 - Constantine Gavrilov <const-g at xpert.com>
15 - Chad N. Tindel <ctindel at ieee dot org>
16 - Janice Girouard <girouard at us dot ibm dot com>
17 - Jay Vosburgh <fubar at us dot ibm dot com>
18
19Reorganized and updated Feb 2005 by Jay Vosburgh
6224e01d 20Added Sysfs information: 2006/04/24
a362032e 21
6224e01d 22 - Mitch Williams <mitch.a.williams at intel.com>
1da177e4 23
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24Introduction
25============
26
a362032e 27The Linux bonding driver provides a method for aggregating
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28multiple network interfaces into a single logical "bonded" interface.
29The behavior of the bonded interfaces depends upon the mode; generally
30speaking, modes provide either hot standby or load balancing services.
31Additionally, link integrity monitoring may be performed.
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32
33The bonding driver originally came from Donald Becker's
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34beowulf patches for kernel 2.0. It has changed quite a bit since, and
35the original tools from extreme-linux and beowulf sites will not work
36with this version of the driver.
1da177e4 37
a362032e 38For new versions of the driver, updated userspace tools, and
00354cfb 39who to ask for help, please follow the links at the end of this file.
1da177e4 40
a362032e 41.. Table of Contents
1da177e4 42
a362032e 43 1. Bonding Driver Installation
1da177e4 44
a362032e 45 2. Bonding Driver Options
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47 3. Configuring Bonding Devices
48 3.1 Configuration with Sysconfig Support
49 3.1.1 Using DHCP with Sysconfig
50 3.1.2 Configuring Multiple Bonds with Sysconfig
51 3.2 Configuration with Initscripts Support
52 3.2.1 Using DHCP with Initscripts
53 3.2.2 Configuring Multiple Bonds with Initscripts
54 3.3 Configuring Bonding Manually with Ifenslave
55 3.3.1 Configuring Multiple Bonds Manually
56 3.4 Configuring Bonding Manually via Sysfs
57 3.5 Configuration with Interfaces Support
58 3.6 Overriding Configuration for Special Cases
59 3.7 Configuring LACP for 802.3ad mode in a more secure way
1da177e4 60
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61 4. Querying Bonding Configuration
62 4.1 Bonding Configuration
63 4.2 Network Configuration
1da177e4 64
a362032e 65 5. Switch Configuration
1da177e4 66
a362032e 67 6. 802.1q VLAN Support
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69 7. Link Monitoring
70 7.1 ARP Monitor Operation
71 7.2 Configuring Multiple ARP Targets
72 7.3 MII Monitor Operation
1da177e4 73
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74 8. Potential Trouble Sources
75 8.1 Adventures in Routing
76 8.2 Ethernet Device Renaming
77 8.3 Painfully Slow Or No Failed Link Detection By Miimon
1da177e4 78
a362032e 79 9. SNMP agents
1da177e4 80
a362032e 81 10. Promiscuous mode
1da177e4 82
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83 11. Configuring Bonding for High Availability
84 11.1 High Availability in a Single Switch Topology
85 11.2 High Availability in a Multiple Switch Topology
86 11.2.1 HA Bonding Mode Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
87 11.2.2 HA Link Monitoring for Multiple Switch Topology
00354cfb 88
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89 12. Configuring Bonding for Maximum Throughput
90 12.1 Maximum Throughput in a Single Switch Topology
91 12.1.1 MT Bonding Mode Selection for Single Switch Topology
92 12.1.2 MT Link Monitoring for Single Switch Topology
93 12.2 Maximum Throughput in a Multiple Switch Topology
94 12.2.1 MT Bonding Mode Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
95 12.2.2 MT Link Monitoring for Multiple Switch Topology
1da177e4 96
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97 13. Switch Behavior Issues
98 13.1 Link Establishment and Failover Delays
99 13.2 Duplicated Incoming Packets
1da177e4 100
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101 14. Hardware Specific Considerations
102 14.1 IBM BladeCenter
1da177e4 103
a362032e 104 15. Frequently Asked Questions
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a362032e 106 16. Resources and Links
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107
108
1091. Bonding Driver Installation
110==============================
111
a362032e 112Most popular distro kernels ship with the bonding driver
b1098bbe 113already available as a module. If your distro does not, or you
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114have need to compile bonding from source (e.g., configuring and
115installing a mainline kernel from kernel.org), you'll need to perform
116the following steps:
117
1181.1 Configure and build the kernel with bonding
119-----------------------------------------------
120
a362032e 121The current version of the bonding driver is available in the
1da177e4 122drivers/net/bonding subdirectory of the most recent kernel source
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123(which is available on http://kernel.org). Most users "rolling their
124own" will want to use the most recent kernel from kernel.org.
1da177e4 125
a362032e 126Configure kernel with "make menuconfig" (or "make xconfig" or
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127"make config"), then select "Bonding driver support" in the "Network
128device support" section. It is recommended that you configure the
129driver as module since it is currently the only way to pass parameters
130to the driver or configure more than one bonding device.
131
a362032e 132Build and install the new kernel and modules.
1da177e4 133
b1098bbe 1341.2 Bonding Control Utility
a362032e 135---------------------------
1da177e4 136
a362032e 137It is recommended to configure bonding via iproute2 (netlink)
b1098bbe 138or sysfs, the old ifenslave control utility is obsolete.
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139
1402. Bonding Driver Options
141=========================
142
a362032e 143Options for the bonding driver are supplied as parameters to the
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144bonding module at load time, or are specified via sysfs.
145
a362032e 146Module options may be given as command line arguments to the
9a6c6867 147insmod or modprobe command, but are usually specified in either the
a362032e 148``/etc/modprobe.d/*.conf`` configuration files, or in a distro-specific
970e2486 149configuration file (some of which are detailed in the next section).
9a6c6867 150
a362032e 151Details on bonding support for sysfs is provided in the
9a6c6867 152"Configuring Bonding Manually via Sysfs" section, below.
1da177e4 153
a362032e 154The available bonding driver parameters are listed below. If a
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155parameter is not specified the default value is used. When initially
156configuring a bond, it is recommended "tail -f /var/log/messages" be
157run in a separate window to watch for bonding driver error messages.
158
a362032e 159It is critical that either the miimon or arp_interval and
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160arp_ip_target parameters be specified, otherwise serious network
161degradation will occur during link failures. Very few devices do not
162support at least miimon, so there is really no reason not to use it.
163
a362032e 164Options with textual values will accept either the text name
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165or, for backwards compatibility, the option value. E.g.,
166"mode=802.3ad" and "mode=4" set the same mode.
1da177e4 167
a362032e 168The parameters are as follows:
1da177e4 169
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170active_slave
171
172 Specifies the new active slave for modes that support it
173 (active-backup, balance-alb and balance-tlb). Possible values
174 are the name of any currently enslaved interface, or an empty
175 string. If a name is given, the slave and its link must be up in order
176 to be selected as the new active slave. If an empty string is
177 specified, the current active slave is cleared, and a new active
178 slave is selected automatically.
179
180 Note that this is only available through the sysfs interface. No module
181 parameter by this name exists.
182
183 The normal value of this option is the name of the currently
184 active slave, or the empty string if there is no active slave or
185 the current mode does not use an active slave.
186
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187ad_actor_sys_prio
188
189 In an AD system, this specifies the system priority. The allowed range
190 is 1 - 65535. If the value is not specified, it takes 65535 as the
191 default value.
192
193 This parameter has effect only in 802.3ad mode and is available through
194 SysFs interface.
195
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196ad_actor_system
197
198 In an AD system, this specifies the mac-address for the actor in
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199 protocol packet exchanges (LACPDUs). The value cannot be a multicast
200 address. If the all-zeroes MAC is specified, bonding will internally
201 use the MAC of the bond itself. It is preferred to have the
202 local-admin bit set for this mac but driver does not enforce it. If
203 the value is not given then system defaults to using the masters'
204 mac address as actors' system address.
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205
206 This parameter has effect only in 802.3ad mode and is available through
207 SysFs interface.
208
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209ad_select
210
211 Specifies the 802.3ad aggregation selection logic to use. The
212 possible values and their effects are:
213
214 stable or 0
215
216 The active aggregator is chosen by largest aggregate
217 bandwidth.
218
219 Reselection of the active aggregator occurs only when all
220 slaves of the active aggregator are down or the active
221 aggregator has no slaves.
222
223 This is the default value.
224
225 bandwidth or 1
226
227 The active aggregator is chosen by largest aggregate
228 bandwidth. Reselection occurs if:
229
230 - A slave is added to or removed from the bond
231
232 - Any slave's link state changes
233
234 - Any slave's 802.3ad association state changes
235
19f59460 236 - The bond's administrative state changes to up
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237
238 count or 2
239
240 The active aggregator is chosen by the largest number of
241 ports (slaves). Reselection occurs as described under the
242 "bandwidth" setting, above.
243
244 The bandwidth and count selection policies permit failover of
245 802.3ad aggregations when partial failure of the active aggregator
246 occurs. This keeps the aggregator with the highest availability
247 (either in bandwidth or in number of ports) active at all times.
248
249 This option was added in bonding version 3.4.0.
250
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251ad_user_port_key
252
253 In an AD system, the port-key has three parts as shown below -
254
a362032e 255 ===== ============
d22a5fc0 256 Bits Use
a362032e 257 ===== ============
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258 00 Duplex
259 01-05 Speed
260 06-15 User-defined
a362032e 261 ===== ============
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262
263 This defines the upper 10 bits of the port key. The values can be
264 from 0 - 1023. If not given, the system defaults to 0.
265
266 This parameter has effect only in 802.3ad mode and is available through
267 SysFs interface.
268
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269all_slaves_active
270
271 Specifies that duplicate frames (received on inactive ports) should be
272 dropped (0) or delivered (1).
273
274 Normally, bonding will drop duplicate frames (received on inactive
275 ports), which is desirable for most users. But there are some times
276 it is nice to allow duplicate frames to be delivered.
277
278 The default value is 0 (drop duplicate frames received on inactive
279 ports).
280
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281arp_interval
282
00354cfb 283 Specifies the ARP link monitoring frequency in milliseconds.
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284
285 The ARP monitor works by periodically checking the slave
286 devices to determine whether they have sent or received
287 traffic recently (the precise criteria depends upon the
288 bonding mode, and the state of the slave). Regular traffic is
289 generated via ARP probes issued for the addresses specified by
290 the arp_ip_target option.
291
292 This behavior can be modified by the arp_validate option,
293 below.
294
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295 If ARP monitoring is used in an etherchannel compatible mode
296 (modes 0 and 2), the switch should be configured in a mode
297 that evenly distributes packets across all links. If the
298 switch is configured to distribute the packets in an XOR
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299 fashion, all replies from the ARP targets will be received on
300 the same link which could cause the other team members to
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301 fail. ARP monitoring should not be used in conjunction with
302 miimon. A value of 0 disables ARP monitoring. The default
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303 value is 0.
304
305arp_ip_target
306
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307 Specifies the IP addresses to use as ARP monitoring peers when
308 arp_interval is > 0. These are the targets of the ARP request
309 sent to determine the health of the link to the targets.
310 Specify these values in ddd.ddd.ddd.ddd format. Multiple IP
311 addresses must be separated by a comma. At least one IP
312 address must be given for ARP monitoring to function. The
313 maximum number of targets that can be specified is 16. The
314 default value is no IP addresses.
1da177e4 315
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316ns_ip6_target
317
318 Specifies the IPv6 addresses to use as IPv6 monitoring peers when
319 arp_interval is > 0. These are the targets of the NS request
320 sent to determine the health of the link to the targets.
321 Specify these values in ffff:ffff::ffff:ffff format. Multiple IPv6
322 addresses must be separated by a comma. At least one IPv6
323 address must be given for NS/NA monitoring to function. The
324 maximum number of targets that can be specified is 16. The
325 default value is no IPv6 addresses.
326
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327arp_validate
328
329 Specifies whether or not ARP probes and replies should be
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330 validated in any mode that supports arp monitoring, or whether
331 non-ARP traffic should be filtered (disregarded) for link
332 monitoring purposes.
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333
334 Possible values are:
335
336 none or 0
337
52f65ef3 338 No validation or filtering is performed.
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339
340 active or 1
341
342 Validation is performed only for the active slave.
343
344 backup or 2
345
346 Validation is performed only for backup slaves.
347
348 all or 3
349
350 Validation is performed for all slaves.
351
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352 filter or 4
353
354 Filtering is applied to all slaves. No validation is
355 performed.
356
357 filter_active or 5
358
359 Filtering is applied to all slaves, validation is performed
360 only for the active slave.
361
362 filter_backup or 6
363
364 Filtering is applied to all slaves, validation is performed
365 only for backup slaves.
366
367 Validation:
368
369 Enabling validation causes the ARP monitor to examine the incoming
370 ARP requests and replies, and only consider a slave to be up if it
371 is receiving the appropriate ARP traffic.
372
373 For an active slave, the validation checks ARP replies to confirm
374 that they were generated by an arp_ip_target. Since backup slaves
375 do not typically receive these replies, the validation performed
376 for backup slaves is on the broadcast ARP request sent out via the
377 active slave. It is possible that some switch or network
378 configurations may result in situations wherein the backup slaves
379 do not receive the ARP requests; in such a situation, validation
380 of backup slaves must be disabled.
381
382 The validation of ARP requests on backup slaves is mainly helping
383 bonding to decide which slaves are more likely to work in case of
384 the active slave failure, it doesn't really guarantee that the
385 backup slave will work if it's selected as the next active slave.
386
387 Validation is useful in network configurations in which multiple
388 bonding hosts are concurrently issuing ARPs to one or more targets
389 beyond a common switch. Should the link between the switch and
390 target fail (but not the switch itself), the probe traffic
391 generated by the multiple bonding instances will fool the standard
392 ARP monitor into considering the links as still up. Use of
393 validation can resolve this, as the ARP monitor will only consider
394 ARP requests and replies associated with its own instance of
395 bonding.
396
397 Filtering:
398
399 Enabling filtering causes the ARP monitor to only use incoming ARP
400 packets for link availability purposes. Arriving packets that are
401 not ARPs are delivered normally, but do not count when determining
402 if a slave is available.
403
404 Filtering operates by only considering the reception of ARP
405 packets (any ARP packet, regardless of source or destination) when
406 determining if a slave has received traffic for link availability
407 purposes.
408
409 Filtering is useful in network configurations in which significant
410 levels of third party broadcast traffic would fool the standard
411 ARP monitor into considering the links as still up. Use of
412 filtering can resolve this, as only ARP traffic is considered for
413 link availability purposes.
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414
415 This option was added in bonding version 3.1.0.
416
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417arp_all_targets
418
419 Specifies the quantity of arp_ip_targets that must be reachable
420 in order for the ARP monitor to consider a slave as being up.
421 This option affects only active-backup mode for slaves with
422 arp_validation enabled.
423
424 Possible values are:
425
426 any or 0
427
428 consider the slave up only when any of the arp_ip_targets
429 is reachable
430
431 all or 1
432
433 consider the slave up only when all of the arp_ip_targets
434 are reachable
435
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436arp_missed_max
437
438 Specifies the number of arp_interval monitor checks that must
439 fail in order for an interface to be marked down by the ARP monitor.
440
441 In order to provide orderly failover semantics, backup interfaces
442 are permitted an extra monitor check (i.e., they must fail
443 arp_missed_max + 1 times before being marked down).
444
445 The default value is 2, and the allowable range is 1 - 255.
446
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447downdelay
448
449 Specifies the time, in milliseconds, to wait before disabling
450 a slave after a link failure has been detected. This option
451 is only valid for the miimon link monitor. The downdelay
452 value should be a multiple of the miimon value; if not, it
453 will be rounded down to the nearest multiple. The default
454 value is 0.
455
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456fail_over_mac
457
458 Specifies whether active-backup mode should set all slaves to
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459 the same MAC address at enslavement (the traditional
460 behavior), or, when enabled, perform special handling of the
461 bond's MAC address in accordance with the selected policy.
462
463 Possible values are:
464
465 none or 0
466
467 This setting disables fail_over_mac, and causes
468 bonding to set all slaves of an active-backup bond to
469 the same MAC address at enslavement time. This is the
470 default.
471
472 active or 1
473
474 The "active" fail_over_mac policy indicates that the
475 MAC address of the bond should always be the MAC
476 address of the currently active slave. The MAC
477 address of the slaves is not changed; instead, the MAC
478 address of the bond changes during a failover.
479
480 This policy is useful for devices that cannot ever
481 alter their MAC address, or for devices that refuse
482 incoming broadcasts with their own source MAC (which
483 interferes with the ARP monitor).
484
485 The down side of this policy is that every device on
486 the network must be updated via gratuitous ARP,
487 vs. just updating a switch or set of switches (which
488 often takes place for any traffic, not just ARP
489 traffic, if the switch snoops incoming traffic to
490 update its tables) for the traditional method. If the
491 gratuitous ARP is lost, communication may be
492 disrupted.
493
25985edc 494 When this policy is used in conjunction with the mii
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495 monitor, devices which assert link up prior to being
496 able to actually transmit and receive are particularly
19f59460 497 susceptible to loss of the gratuitous ARP, and an
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498 appropriate updelay setting may be required.
499
500 follow or 2
501
502 The "follow" fail_over_mac policy causes the MAC
503 address of the bond to be selected normally (normally
504 the MAC address of the first slave added to the bond).
505 However, the second and subsequent slaves are not set
506 to this MAC address while they are in a backup role; a
507 slave is programmed with the bond's MAC address at
508 failover time (and the formerly active slave receives
509 the newly active slave's MAC address).
510
511 This policy is useful for multiport devices that
512 either become confused or incur a performance penalty
513 when multiple ports are programmed with the same MAC
514 address.
515
516
517 The default policy is none, unless the first slave cannot
518 change its MAC address, in which case the active policy is
519 selected by default.
520
521 This option may be modified via sysfs only when no slaves are
522 present in the bond.
523
524 This option was added in bonding version 3.2.0. The "follow"
525 policy was added in bonding version 3.3.0.
dd957c57 526
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527lacp_active
528 Option specifying whether to send LACPDU frames periodically.
529
530 off or 0
531 LACPDU frames acts as "speak when spoken to".
532
533 on or 1
534 LACPDU frames are sent along the configured links
535 periodically. See lacp_rate for more details.
536
537 The default is on.
538
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539lacp_rate
540
541 Option specifying the rate in which we'll ask our link partner
542 to transmit LACPDU packets in 802.3ad mode. Possible values
543 are:
544
545 slow or 0
00354cfb 546 Request partner to transmit LACPDUs every 30 seconds
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547
548 fast or 1
549 Request partner to transmit LACPDUs every 1 second
550
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551 The default is slow.
552
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553max_bonds
554
555 Specifies the number of bonding devices to create for this
556 instance of the bonding driver. E.g., if max_bonds is 3, and
557 the bonding driver is not already loaded, then bond0, bond1
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558 and bond2 will be created. The default value is 1. Specifying
559 a value of 0 will load bonding, but will not create any devices.
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560
561miimon
562
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563 Specifies the MII link monitoring frequency in milliseconds.
564 This determines how often the link state of each slave is
565 inspected for link failures. A value of zero disables MII
566 link monitoring. A value of 100 is a good starting point.
567 The use_carrier option, below, affects how the link state is
1da177e4 568 determined. See the High Availability section for additional
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569 information. The default value is 100 if arp_interval is not
570 set.
1da177e4 571
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572min_links
573
574 Specifies the minimum number of links that must be active before
575 asserting carrier. It is similar to the Cisco EtherChannel min-links
576 feature. This allows setting the minimum number of member ports that
577 must be up (link-up state) before marking the bond device as up
578 (carrier on). This is useful for situations where higher level services
579 such as clustering want to ensure a minimum number of low bandwidth
580 links are active before switchover. This option only affect 802.3ad
581 mode.
582
583 The default value is 0. This will cause carrier to be asserted (for
584 802.3ad mode) whenever there is an active aggregator, regardless of the
585 number of available links in that aggregator. Note that, because an
586 aggregator cannot be active without at least one available link,
587 setting this option to 0 or to 1 has the exact same effect.
588
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589mode
590
591 Specifies one of the bonding policies. The default is
592 balance-rr (round robin). Possible values are:
593
594 balance-rr or 0
595
596 Round-robin policy: Transmit packets in sequential
597 order from the first available slave through the
598 last. This mode provides load balancing and fault
599 tolerance.
600
601 active-backup or 1
602
603 Active-backup policy: Only one slave in the bond is
604 active. A different slave becomes active if, and only
605 if, the active slave fails. The bond's MAC address is
606 externally visible on only one port (network adapter)
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607 to avoid confusing the switch.
608
609 In bonding version 2.6.2 or later, when a failover
610 occurs in active-backup mode, bonding will issue one
611 or more gratuitous ARPs on the newly active slave.
6224e01d 612 One gratuitous ARP is issued for the bonding master
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613 interface and each VLAN interfaces configured above
614 it, provided that the interface has at least one IP
615 address configured. Gratuitous ARPs issued for VLAN
616 interfaces are tagged with the appropriate VLAN id.
617
618 This mode provides fault tolerance. The primary
619 option, documented below, affects the behavior of this
620 mode.
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621
622 balance-xor or 2
623
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624 XOR policy: Transmit based on the selected transmit
625 hash policy. The default policy is a simple [(source
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626 MAC address XOR'd with destination MAC address XOR
627 packet type ID) modulo slave count]. Alternate transmit
628 policies may be selected via the xmit_hash_policy option,
629 described below.
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630
631 This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance.
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632
633 broadcast or 3
634
635 Broadcast policy: transmits everything on all slave
636 interfaces. This mode provides fault tolerance.
637
638 802.3ad or 4
639
640 IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic link aggregation. Creates
641 aggregation groups that share the same speed and
642 duplex settings. Utilizes all slaves in the active
643 aggregator according to the 802.3ad specification.
644
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645 Slave selection for outgoing traffic is done according
646 to the transmit hash policy, which may be changed from
647 the default simple XOR policy via the xmit_hash_policy
648 option, documented below. Note that not all transmit
649 policies may be 802.3ad compliant, particularly in
650 regards to the packet mis-ordering requirements of
651 section 43.2.4 of the 802.3ad standard. Differing
652 peer implementations will have varying tolerances for
653 noncompliance.
654
655 Prerequisites:
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656
657 1. Ethtool support in the base drivers for retrieving
658 the speed and duplex of each slave.
659
660 2. A switch that supports IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic link
661 aggregation.
662
663 Most switches will require some type of configuration
664 to enable 802.3ad mode.
665
666 balance-tlb or 5
667
668 Adaptive transmit load balancing: channel bonding that
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669 does not require any special switch support.
670
671 In tlb_dynamic_lb=1 mode; the outgoing traffic is
672 distributed according to the current load (computed
673 relative to the speed) on each slave.
674
675 In tlb_dynamic_lb=0 mode; the load balancing based on
676 current load is disabled and the load is distributed
677 only using the hash distribution.
678
679 Incoming traffic is received by the current slave.
680 If the receiving slave fails, another slave takes over
681 the MAC address of the failed receiving slave.
1da177e4
LT
682
683 Prerequisite:
684
685 Ethtool support in the base drivers for retrieving the
686 speed of each slave.
687
688 balance-alb or 6
689
690 Adaptive load balancing: includes balance-tlb plus
691 receive load balancing (rlb) for IPV4 traffic, and
692 does not require any special switch support. The
693 receive load balancing is achieved by ARP negotiation.
694 The bonding driver intercepts the ARP Replies sent by
695 the local system on their way out and overwrites the
696 source hardware address with the unique hardware
697 address of one of the slaves in the bond such that
698 different peers use different hardware addresses for
699 the server.
700
701 Receive traffic from connections created by the server
702 is also balanced. When the local system sends an ARP
703 Request the bonding driver copies and saves the peer's
704 IP information from the ARP packet. When the ARP
705 Reply arrives from the peer, its hardware address is
706 retrieved and the bonding driver initiates an ARP
707 reply to this peer assigning it to one of the slaves
708 in the bond. A problematic outcome of using ARP
709 negotiation for balancing is that each time that an
710 ARP request is broadcast it uses the hardware address
711 of the bond. Hence, peers learn the hardware address
712 of the bond and the balancing of receive traffic
713 collapses to the current slave. This is handled by
714 sending updates (ARP Replies) to all the peers with
715 their individually assigned hardware address such that
716 the traffic is redistributed. Receive traffic is also
717 redistributed when a new slave is added to the bond
718 and when an inactive slave is re-activated. The
719 receive load is distributed sequentially (round robin)
720 among the group of highest speed slaves in the bond.
721
722 When a link is reconnected or a new slave joins the
723 bond the receive traffic is redistributed among all
00354cfb 724 active slaves in the bond by initiating ARP Replies
6224e01d 725 with the selected MAC address to each of the
1da177e4
LT
726 clients. The updelay parameter (detailed below) must
727 be set to a value equal or greater than the switch's
728 forwarding delay so that the ARP Replies sent to the
729 peers will not be blocked by the switch.
730
731 Prerequisites:
732
733 1. Ethtool support in the base drivers for retrieving
734 the speed of each slave.
735
736 2. Base driver support for setting the hardware
737 address of a device while it is open. This is
738 required so that there will always be one slave in the
739 team using the bond hardware address (the
740 curr_active_slave) while having a unique hardware
741 address for each slave in the bond. If the
742 curr_active_slave fails its hardware address is
743 swapped with the new curr_active_slave that was
744 chosen.
745
a362032e 746num_grat_arp,
305d552a
BH
747num_unsol_na
748
ad246c99
BH
749 Specify the number of peer notifications (gratuitous ARPs and
750 unsolicited IPv6 Neighbor Advertisements) to be issued after a
751 failover event. As soon as the link is up on the new slave
752 (possibly immediately) a peer notification is sent on the
0307d589
VB
753 bonding device and each VLAN sub-device. This is repeated at
754 the rate specified by peer_notif_delay if the number is
755 greater than 1.
ad246c99
BH
756
757 The valid range is 0 - 255; the default value is 1. These options
758 affect only the active-backup mode. These options were added for
759 bonding versions 3.3.0 and 3.4.0 respectively.
760
8fb4e139 761 From Linux 3.0 and bonding version 3.7.1, these notifications
ad246c99
BH
762 are generated by the ipv4 and ipv6 code and the numbers of
763 repetitions cannot be set independently.
305d552a 764
12465fb8
NA
765packets_per_slave
766
767 Specify the number of packets to transmit through a slave before
768 moving to the next one. When set to 0 then a slave is chosen at
769 random.
770
771 The valid range is 0 - 65535; the default value is 1. This option
772 has effect only in balance-rr mode.
773
0307d589
VB
774peer_notif_delay
775
a362032e
MCC
776 Specify the delay, in milliseconds, between each peer
777 notification (gratuitous ARP and unsolicited IPv6 Neighbor
778 Advertisement) when they are issued after a failover event.
84df83e0
HL
779 This delay should be a multiple of the MII link monitor interval
780 (miimon).
781
782 The valid range is 0 - 300000. The default value is 0, which means
783 to match the value of the MII link monitor interval.
0307d589 784
0a2ff7cc
HL
785prio
786 Slave priority. A higher number means higher priority.
787 The primary slave has the highest priority. This option also
788 follows the primary_reselect rules.
789
790 This option could only be configured via netlink, and is only valid
791 for active-backup(1), balance-tlb (5) and balance-alb (6) mode.
792 The valid value range is a signed 32 bit integer.
793
794 The default value is 0.
795
1da177e4
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796primary
797
798 A string (eth0, eth2, etc) specifying which slave is the
799 primary device. The specified device will always be the
800 active slave while it is available. Only when the primary is
801 off-line will alternate devices be used. This is useful when
802 one slave is preferred over another, e.g., when one slave has
803 higher throughput than another.
804
e1d206a7 805 The primary option is only valid for active-backup(1),
806 balance-tlb (5) and balance-alb (6) mode.
1da177e4 807
a549952a
JP
808primary_reselect
809
810 Specifies the reselection policy for the primary slave. This
811 affects how the primary slave is chosen to become the active slave
812 when failure of the active slave or recovery of the primary slave
813 occurs. This option is designed to prevent flip-flopping between
814 the primary slave and other slaves. Possible values are:
815
816 always or 0 (default)
817
818 The primary slave becomes the active slave whenever it
819 comes back up.
820
821 better or 1
822
823 The primary slave becomes the active slave when it comes
824 back up, if the speed and duplex of the primary slave is
825 better than the speed and duplex of the current active
826 slave.
827
828 failure or 2
829
830 The primary slave becomes the active slave only if the
831 current active slave fails and the primary slave is up.
832
833 The primary_reselect setting is ignored in two cases:
834
835 If no slaves are active, the first slave to recover is
836 made the active slave.
837
838 When initially enslaved, the primary slave is always made
839 the active slave.
840
841 Changing the primary_reselect policy via sysfs will cause an
842 immediate selection of the best active slave according to the new
843 policy. This may or may not result in a change of the active
844 slave, depending upon the circumstances.
845
846 This option was added for bonding version 3.6.0.
847
e9f0fb88
MB
848tlb_dynamic_lb
849
850 Specifies if dynamic shuffling of flows is enabled in tlb
fa872447 851 or alb mode. The value has no effect on any other modes.
e9f0fb88
MB
852
853 The default behavior of tlb mode is to shuffle active flows across
854 slaves based on the load in that interval. This gives nice lb
855 characteristics but can cause packet reordering. If re-ordering is
856 a concern use this variable to disable flow shuffling and rely on
857 load balancing provided solely by the hash distribution.
858 xmit-hash-policy can be used to select the appropriate hashing for
859 the setup.
860
861 The sysfs entry can be used to change the setting per bond device
862 and the initial value is derived from the module parameter. The
863 sysfs entry is allowed to be changed only if the bond device is
864 down.
865
866 The default value is "1" that enables flow shuffling while value "0"
867 disables it. This option was added in bonding driver 3.7.1
868
869
1da177e4
LT
870updelay
871
872 Specifies the time, in milliseconds, to wait before enabling a
873 slave after a link recovery has been detected. This option is
874 only valid for the miimon link monitor. The updelay value
875 should be a multiple of the miimon value; if not, it will be
876 rounded down to the nearest multiple. The default value is 0.
877
878use_carrier
879
880 Specifies whether or not miimon should use MII or ETHTOOL
881 ioctls vs. netif_carrier_ok() to determine the link
882 status. The MII or ETHTOOL ioctls are less efficient and
883 utilize a deprecated calling sequence within the kernel. The
884 netif_carrier_ok() relies on the device driver to maintain its
885 state with netif_carrier_on/off; at this writing, most, but
886 not all, device drivers support this facility.
887
888 If bonding insists that the link is up when it should not be,
889 it may be that your network device driver does not support
890 netif_carrier_on/off. The default state for netif_carrier is
891 "carrier on," so if a driver does not support netif_carrier,
892 it will appear as if the link is always up. In this case,
893 setting use_carrier to 0 will cause bonding to revert to the
894 MII / ETHTOOL ioctl method to determine the link state.
895
896 A value of 1 enables the use of netif_carrier_ok(), a value of
b3c898e2
DB
897 0 will use the deprecated MII / ETHTOOL ioctls. The default
898 value is 1.
1da177e4 899
00354cfb
JV
900xmit_hash_policy
901
902 Selects the transmit hash policy to use for slave selection in
f05b42ea 903 balance-xor, 802.3ad, and tlb modes. Possible values are:
00354cfb
JV
904
905 layer2
906
92abf750
JX
907 Uses XOR of hardware MAC addresses and packet type ID
908 field to generate the hash. The formula is
00354cfb 909
2cd1881b 910 hash = source MAC[5] XOR destination MAC[5] XOR packet type ID
92abf750 911 slave number = hash modulo slave count
00354cfb
JV
912
913 This algorithm will place all traffic to a particular
914 network peer on the same slave.
915
916 This algorithm is 802.3ad compliant.
917
6f6652be
JV
918 layer2+3
919
920 This policy uses a combination of layer2 and layer3
921 protocol information to generate the hash.
922
923 Uses XOR of hardware MAC addresses and IP addresses to
7a6afab1 924 generate the hash. The formula is
6f6652be 925
2cd1881b 926 hash = source MAC[5] XOR destination MAC[5] XOR packet type ID
7a6afab1
NA
927 hash = hash XOR source IP XOR destination IP
928 hash = hash XOR (hash RSHIFT 16)
929 hash = hash XOR (hash RSHIFT 8)
930 And then hash is reduced modulo slave count.
6f6652be 931
7a6afab1
NA
932 If the protocol is IPv6 then the source and destination
933 addresses are first hashed using ipv6_addr_hash.
6b923cb7 934
6f6652be
JV
935 This algorithm will place all traffic to a particular
936 network peer on the same slave. For non-IP traffic,
937 the formula is the same as for the layer2 transmit
938 hash policy.
939
940 This policy is intended to provide a more balanced
941 distribution of traffic than layer2 alone, especially
942 in environments where a layer3 gateway device is
943 required to reach most destinations.
944
d9195881 945 This algorithm is 802.3ad compliant.
6f6652be 946
00354cfb
JV
947 layer3+4
948
949 This policy uses upper layer protocol information,
950 when available, to generate the hash. This allows for
951 traffic to a particular network peer to span multiple
952 slaves, although a single connection will not span
953 multiple slaves.
954
7a6afab1 955 The formula for unfragmented TCP and UDP packets is
00354cfb 956
7a6afab1
NA
957 hash = source port, destination port (as in the header)
958 hash = hash XOR source IP XOR destination IP
959 hash = hash XOR (hash RSHIFT 16)
960 hash = hash XOR (hash RSHIFT 8)
95cce3fa 961 hash = hash RSHIFT 1
7a6afab1 962 And then hash is reduced modulo slave count.
6b923cb7 963
7a6afab1
NA
964 If the protocol is IPv6 then the source and destination
965 addresses are first hashed using ipv6_addr_hash.
6b923cb7
JE
966
967 For fragmented TCP or UDP packets and all other IPv4 and
968 IPv6 protocol traffic, the source and destination port
00354cfb
JV
969 information is omitted. For non-IP traffic, the
970 formula is the same as for the layer2 transmit hash
971 policy.
972
00354cfb
JV
973 This algorithm is not fully 802.3ad compliant. A
974 single TCP or UDP conversation containing both
975 fragmented and unfragmented packets will see packets
976 striped across two interfaces. This may result in out
977 of order delivery. Most traffic types will not meet
978 this criteria, as TCP rarely fragments traffic, and
979 most UDP traffic is not involved in extended
980 conversations. Other implementations of 802.3ad may
981 or may not tolerate this noncompliance.
982
7a6afab1
NA
983 encap2+3
984
985 This policy uses the same formula as layer2+3 but it
986 relies on skb_flow_dissect to obtain the header fields
987 which might result in the use of inner headers if an
988 encapsulation protocol is used. For example this will
989 improve the performance for tunnel users because the
990 packets will be distributed according to the encapsulated
991 flows.
992
993 encap3+4
994
995 This policy uses the same formula as layer3+4 but it
996 relies on skb_flow_dissect to obtain the header fields
997 which might result in the use of inner headers if an
998 encapsulation protocol is used. For example this will
999 improve the performance for tunnel users because the
1000 packets will be distributed according to the encapsulated
1001 flows.
1002
7b8fc010
JW
1003 vlan+srcmac
1004
1005 This policy uses a very rudimentary vlan ID and source mac
1006 hash to load-balance traffic per-vlan, with failover
1007 should one leg fail. The intended use case is for a bond
1008 shared by multiple virtual machines, all configured to
1009 use their own vlan, to give lacp-like functionality
1010 without requiring lacp-capable switching hardware.
1011
1012 The formula for the hash is simply
1013
1014 hash = (vlan ID) XOR (source MAC vendor) XOR (source MAC dev)
1015
00354cfb 1016 The default value is layer2. This option was added in bonding
6f6652be
JV
1017 version 2.6.3. In earlier versions of bonding, this parameter
1018 does not exist, and the layer2 policy is the only policy. The
1019 layer2+3 value was added for bonding version 3.2.2.
1da177e4 1020
c2952c31
FL
1021resend_igmp
1022
1023 Specifies the number of IGMP membership reports to be issued after
1024 a failover event. One membership report is issued immediately after
1025 the failover, subsequent packets are sent in each 200ms interval.
1026
94265cf5
FL
1027 The valid range is 0 - 255; the default value is 1. A value of 0
1028 prevents the IGMP membership report from being issued in response
1029 to the failover event.
1030
1031 This option is useful for bonding modes balance-rr (0), active-backup
1032 (1), balance-tlb (5) and balance-alb (6), in which a failover can
1033 switch the IGMP traffic from one slave to another. Therefore a fresh
1034 IGMP report must be issued to cause the switch to forward the incoming
1035 IGMP traffic over the newly selected slave.
1036
1037 This option was added for bonding version 3.7.0.
1da177e4 1038
84a6a0ac 1039lp_interval
1040
1041 Specifies the number of seconds between instances where the bonding
1042 driver sends learning packets to each slaves peer switch.
1043
1044 The valid range is 1 - 0x7fffffff; the default value is 1. This Option
1045 has effect only in balance-tlb and balance-alb modes.
1046
1da177e4
LT
10473. Configuring Bonding Devices
1048==============================
1049
a362032e 1050You can configure bonding using either your distro's network
b1098bbe 1051initialization scripts, or manually using either iproute2 or the
de221bd5
NP
1052sysfs interface. Distros generally use one of three packages for the
1053network initialization scripts: initscripts, sysconfig or interfaces.
1054Recent versions of these packages have support for bonding, while older
6224e01d 1055versions do not.
1da177e4 1056
a362032e 1057We will first describe the options for configuring bonding for
de221bd5
NP
1058distros using versions of initscripts, sysconfig and interfaces with full
1059or partial support for bonding, then provide information on enabling
1da177e4
LT
1060bonding without support from the network initialization scripts (i.e.,
1061older versions of initscripts or sysconfig).
1062
a362032e 1063If you're unsure whether your distro uses sysconfig,
de221bd5 1064initscripts or interfaces, or don't know if it's new enough, have no fear.
1da177e4
LT
1065Determining this is fairly straightforward.
1066
a362032e 1067First, look for a file called interfaces in /etc/network directory.
de221bd5
NP
1068If this file is present in your system, then your system use interfaces. See
1069Configuration with Interfaces Support.
1070
a362032e 1071Else, issue the command::
1da177e4 1072
a362032e 1073 $ rpm -qf /sbin/ifup
1da177e4 1074
a362032e 1075It will respond with a line of text starting with either
1da177e4
LT
1076"initscripts" or "sysconfig," followed by some numbers. This is the
1077package that provides your network initialization scripts.
1078
a362032e
MCC
1079Next, to determine if your installation supports bonding,
1080issue the command::
1da177e4 1081
a362032e 1082 $ grep ifenslave /sbin/ifup
1da177e4 1083
a362032e 1084If this returns any matches, then your initscripts or
1da177e4
LT
1085sysconfig has support for bonding.
1086
6224e01d 10873.1 Configuration with Sysconfig Support
1da177e4
LT
1088----------------------------------------
1089
a362032e 1090This section applies to distros using a version of sysconfig
1da177e4
LT
1091with bonding support, for example, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.
1092
a362032e 1093SuSE SLES 9's networking configuration system does support
1da177e4 1094bonding, however, at this writing, the YaST system configuration
6224e01d 1095front end does not provide any means to work with bonding devices.
1da177e4
LT
1096Bonding devices can be managed by hand, however, as follows.
1097
a362032e 1098First, if they have not already been configured, configure the
1da177e4
LT
1099slave devices. On SLES 9, this is most easily done by running the
1100yast2 sysconfig configuration utility. The goal is for to create an
1101ifcfg-id file for each slave device. The simplest way to accomplish
00354cfb
JV
1102this is to configure the devices for DHCP (this is only to get the
1103file ifcfg-id file created; see below for some issues with DHCP). The
a362032e 1104name of the configuration file for each device will be of the form::
1da177e4 1105
a362032e 1106 ifcfg-id-xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
1da177e4 1107
a362032e 1108Where the "xx" portion will be replaced with the digits from
1da177e4
LT
1109the device's permanent MAC address.
1110
a362032e 1111Once the set of ifcfg-id-xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx files has been
1da177e4
LT
1112created, it is necessary to edit the configuration files for the slave
1113devices (the MAC addresses correspond to those of the slave devices).
00354cfb 1114Before editing, the file will contain multiple lines, and will look
a362032e 1115something like this::
1da177e4 1116
a362032e
MCC
1117 BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
1118 STARTMODE='on'
1119 USERCTL='no'
1120 UNIQUE='XNzu.WeZGOGF+4wE'
1121 _nm_name='bus-pci-0001:61:01.0'
1da177e4 1122
a362032e 1123Change the BOOTPROTO and STARTMODE lines to the following::
1da177e4 1124
a362032e
MCC
1125 BOOTPROTO='none'
1126 STARTMODE='off'
1da177e4 1127
a362032e 1128Do not alter the UNIQUE or _nm_name lines. Remove any other
1da177e4
LT
1129lines (USERCTL, etc).
1130
a362032e 1131Once the ifcfg-id-xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx files have been modified,
1da177e4
LT
1132it's time to create the configuration file for the bonding device
1133itself. This file is named ifcfg-bondX, where X is the number of the
1134bonding device to create, starting at 0. The first such file is
1135ifcfg-bond0, the second is ifcfg-bond1, and so on. The sysconfig
1136network configuration system will correctly start multiple instances
1137of bonding.
1138
a362032e
MCC
1139The contents of the ifcfg-bondX file is as follows::
1140
1141 BOOTPROTO="static"
1142 BROADCAST="10.0.2.255"
1143 IPADDR="10.0.2.10"
1144 NETMASK="255.255.0.0"
1145 NETWORK="10.0.2.0"
1146 REMOTE_IPADDR=""
1147 STARTMODE="onboot"
1148 BONDING_MASTER="yes"
1149 BONDING_MODULE_OPTS="mode=active-backup miimon=100"
1150 BONDING_SLAVE0="eth0"
1151 BONDING_SLAVE1="bus-pci-0000:06:08.1"
1152
1153Replace the sample BROADCAST, IPADDR, NETMASK and NETWORK
1da177e4
LT
1154values with the appropriate values for your network.
1155
a362032e 1156The STARTMODE specifies when the device is brought online.
1da177e4
LT
1157The possible values are:
1158
a362032e
MCC
1159 ======== ======================================================
1160 onboot The device is started at boot time. If you're not
1da177e4
LT
1161 sure, this is probably what you want.
1162
a362032e 1163 manual The device is started only when ifup is called
1da177e4
LT
1164 manually. Bonding devices may be configured this
1165 way if you do not wish them to start automatically
1166 at boot for some reason.
1167
a362032e 1168 hotplug The device is started by a hotplug event. This is not
1da177e4
LT
1169 a valid choice for a bonding device.
1170
a362032e
MCC
1171 off or The device configuration is ignored.
1172 ignore
1173 ======== ======================================================
1da177e4 1174
a362032e 1175The line BONDING_MASTER='yes' indicates that the device is a
1da177e4
LT
1176bonding master device. The only useful value is "yes."
1177
a362032e 1178The contents of BONDING_MODULE_OPTS are supplied to the
1da177e4
LT
1179instance of the bonding module for this device. Specify the options
1180for the bonding mode, link monitoring, and so on here. Do not include
1181the max_bonds bonding parameter; this will confuse the configuration
1182system if you have multiple bonding devices.
1183
a362032e 1184Finally, supply one BONDING_SLAVEn="slave device" for each
00354cfb
JV
1185slave. where "n" is an increasing value, one for each slave. The
1186"slave device" is either an interface name, e.g., "eth0", or a device
1187specifier for the network device. The interface name is easier to
1188find, but the ethN names are subject to change at boot time if, e.g.,
1189a device early in the sequence has failed. The device specifiers
1190(bus-pci-0000:06:08.1 in the example above) specify the physical
1191network device, and will not change unless the device's bus location
1192changes (for example, it is moved from one PCI slot to another). The
1193example above uses one of each type for demonstration purposes; most
1194configurations will choose one or the other for all slave devices.
1da177e4 1195
a362032e 1196When all configuration files have been modified or created,
1da177e4 1197networking must be restarted for the configuration changes to take
a362032e 1198effect. This can be accomplished via the following::
1da177e4 1199
a362032e 1200 # /etc/init.d/network restart
1da177e4 1201
a362032e 1202Note that the network control script (/sbin/ifdown) will
1da177e4
LT
1203remove the bonding module as part of the network shutdown processing,
1204so it is not necessary to remove the module by hand if, e.g., the
00354cfb 1205module parameters have changed.
1da177e4 1206
a362032e 1207Also, at this writing, YaST/YaST2 will not manage bonding
1da177e4
LT
1208devices (they do not show bonding interfaces on its list of network
1209devices). It is necessary to edit the configuration file by hand to
1210change the bonding configuration.
1211
a362032e
MCC
1212Additional general options and details of the ifcfg file
1213format can be found in an example ifcfg template file::
1da177e4 1214
a362032e 1215 /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg.template
1da177e4 1216
a362032e 1217Note that the template does not document the various ``BONDING_*``
1da177e4
LT
1218settings described above, but does describe many of the other options.
1219
6224e01d 12203.1.1 Using DHCP with Sysconfig
00354cfb
JV
1221-------------------------------
1222
a362032e 1223Under sysconfig, configuring a device with BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
00354cfb
JV
1224will cause it to query DHCP for its IP address information. At this
1225writing, this does not function for bonding devices; the scripts
1226attempt to obtain the device address from DHCP prior to adding any of
1227the slave devices. Without active slaves, the DHCP requests are not
1228sent to the network.
1229
6224e01d 12303.1.2 Configuring Multiple Bonds with Sysconfig
00354cfb
JV
1231-----------------------------------------------
1232
a362032e 1233The sysconfig network initialization system is capable of
00354cfb
JV
1234handling multiple bonding devices. All that is necessary is for each
1235bonding instance to have an appropriately configured ifcfg-bondX file
1236(as described above). Do not specify the "max_bonds" parameter to any
1237instance of bonding, as this will confuse sysconfig. If you require
1238multiple bonding devices with identical parameters, create multiple
1239ifcfg-bondX files.
1240
a362032e 1241Because the sysconfig scripts supply the bonding module
00354cfb 1242options in the ifcfg-bondX file, it is not necessary to add them to
a362032e 1243the system ``/etc/modules.d/*.conf`` configuration files.
00354cfb 1244
6224e01d 12453.2 Configuration with Initscripts Support
1da177e4
LT
1246------------------------------------------
1247
a362032e 1248This section applies to distros using a recent version of
9a6c6867
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1249initscripts with bonding support, for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1250version 3 or later, Fedora, etc. On these systems, the network
1251initialization scripts have knowledge of bonding, and can be configured to
1252control bonding devices. Note that older versions of the initscripts
1253package have lower levels of support for bonding; this will be noted where
1254applicable.
1da177e4 1255
a362032e 1256These distros will not automatically load the network adapter
1da177e4
LT
1257driver unless the ethX device is configured with an IP address.
1258Because of this constraint, users must manually configure a
1259network-script file for all physical adapters that will be members of
1260a bondX link. Network script files are located in the directory:
1261
1262/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
1263
a362032e 1264The file name must be prefixed with "ifcfg-eth" and suffixed
1da177e4
LT
1265with the adapter's physical adapter number. For example, the script
1266for eth0 would be named /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0.
a362032e 1267Place the following text in the file::
1da177e4 1268
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1269 DEVICE=eth0
1270 USERCTL=no
1271 ONBOOT=yes
1272 MASTER=bond0
1273 SLAVE=yes
1274 BOOTPROTO=none
1da177e4 1275
a362032e 1276The DEVICE= line will be different for every ethX device and
1da177e4
LT
1277must correspond with the name of the file, i.e., ifcfg-eth1 must have
1278a device line of DEVICE=eth1. The setting of the MASTER= line will
1279also depend on the final bonding interface name chosen for your bond.
1280As with other network devices, these typically start at 0, and go up
1281one for each device, i.e., the first bonding instance is bond0, the
1282second is bond1, and so on.
1283
a362032e 1284Next, create a bond network script. The file name for this
1da177e4
LT
1285script will be /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bondX where X is
1286the number of the bond. For bond0 the file is named "ifcfg-bond0",
1287for bond1 it is named "ifcfg-bond1", and so on. Within that file,
a362032e
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1288place the following text::
1289
1290 DEVICE=bond0
1291 IPADDR=192.168.1.1
1292 NETMASK=255.255.255.0
1293 NETWORK=192.168.1.0
1294 BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
1295 ONBOOT=yes
1296 BOOTPROTO=none
1297 USERCTL=no
1298
1299Be sure to change the networking specific lines (IPADDR,
1da177e4
LT
1300NETMASK, NETWORK and BROADCAST) to match your network configuration.
1301
a362032e 1302For later versions of initscripts, such as that found with Fedora
3f8b4b13
AG
13037 (or later) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5 (or later), it is possible,
1304and, indeed, preferable, to specify the bonding options in the ifcfg-bond0
a362032e 1305file, e.g. a line of the format::
9a6c6867 1306
a362032e 1307 BONDING_OPTS="mode=active-backup arp_interval=60 arp_ip_target=192.168.1.254"
9a6c6867 1308
a362032e 1309will configure the bond with the specified options. The options
9a6c6867 1310specified in BONDING_OPTS are identical to the bonding module parameters
3f8b4b13
AG
1311except for the arp_ip_target field when using versions of initscripts older
1312than and 8.57 (Fedora 8) and 8.45.19 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2). When
1313using older versions each target should be included as a separate option and
1314should be preceded by a '+' to indicate it should be added to the list of
a362032e 1315queried targets, e.g.,::
9a6c6867 1316
a362032e 1317 arp_ip_target=+192.168.1.1 arp_ip_target=+192.168.1.2
9a6c6867 1318
a362032e
MCC
1319is the proper syntax to specify multiple targets. When specifying
1320options via BONDING_OPTS, it is not necessary to edit
1321``/etc/modprobe.d/*.conf``.
9a6c6867 1322
a362032e 1323For even older versions of initscripts that do not support
970e2486
LDM
1324BONDING_OPTS, it is necessary to edit /etc/modprobe.d/*.conf, depending upon
1325your distro) to load the bonding module with your desired options when the
1326bond0 interface is brought up. The following lines in /etc/modprobe.d/*.conf
1327will load the bonding module, and select its options:
1da177e4 1328
a362032e
MCC
1329 alias bond0 bonding
1330 options bond0 mode=balance-alb miimon=100
1da177e4 1331
a362032e 1332Replace the sample parameters with the appropriate set of
1da177e4
LT
1333options for your configuration.
1334
a362032e 1335Finally run "/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart" as root. This
1da177e4
LT
1336will restart the networking subsystem and your bond link should be now
1337up and running.
1338
6224e01d 13393.2.1 Using DHCP with Initscripts
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1340---------------------------------
1341
a362032e 1342Recent versions of initscripts (the versions supplied with Fedora
9a6c6867
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1343Core 3 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, or later versions, are reported to
1344work) have support for assigning IP information to bonding devices via
1345DHCP.
00354cfb 1346
a362032e 1347To configure bonding for DHCP, configure it as described
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JV
1348above, except replace the line "BOOTPROTO=none" with "BOOTPROTO=dhcp"
1349and add a line consisting of "TYPE=Bonding". Note that the TYPE value
1350is case sensitive.
1351
6224e01d 13523.2.2 Configuring Multiple Bonds with Initscripts
00354cfb
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1353-------------------------------------------------
1354
a362032e 1355Initscripts packages that are included with Fedora 7 and Red Hat
9a6c6867
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1356Enterprise Linux 5 support multiple bonding interfaces by simply
1357specifying the appropriate BONDING_OPTS= in ifcfg-bondX where X is the
1358number of the bond. This support requires sysfs support in the kernel,
1359and a bonding driver of version 3.0.0 or later. Other configurations may
1360not support this method for specifying multiple bonding interfaces; for
1361those instances, see the "Configuring Multiple Bonds Manually" section,
1362below.
1da177e4 1363
b1098bbe 13643.3 Configuring Bonding Manually with iproute2
6224e01d 1365-----------------------------------------------
1da177e4 1366
a362032e 1367This section applies to distros whose network initialization
1da177e4
LT
1368scripts (the sysconfig or initscripts package) do not have specific
1369knowledge of bonding. One such distro is SuSE Linux Enterprise Server
1370version 8.
1371
a362032e 1372The general method for these systems is to place the bonding
970e2486 1373module parameters into a config file in /etc/modprobe.d/ (as
00354cfb 1374appropriate for the installed distro), then add modprobe and/or
b1098bbe 1375`ip link` commands to the system's global init script. The name of
00354cfb 1376the global init script differs; for sysconfig, it is
1da177e4
LT
1377/etc/init.d/boot.local and for initscripts it is /etc/rc.d/rc.local.
1378
a362032e 1379For example, if you wanted to make a simple bond of two e100
1da177e4
LT
1380devices (presumed to be eth0 and eth1), and have it persist across
1381reboots, edit the appropriate file (/etc/init.d/boot.local or
a362032e 1382/etc/rc.d/rc.local), and add the following::
1da177e4 1383
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1384 modprobe bonding mode=balance-alb miimon=100
1385 modprobe e100
1386 ifconfig bond0 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
1387 ip link set eth0 master bond0
1388 ip link set eth1 master bond0
1da177e4 1389
a362032e 1390Replace the example bonding module parameters and bond0
1da177e4 1391network configuration (IP address, netmask, etc) with the appropriate
00354cfb 1392values for your configuration.
1da177e4 1393
a362032e 1394Unfortunately, this method will not provide support for the
1da177e4 1395ifup and ifdown scripts on the bond devices. To reload the bonding
a362032e 1396configuration, it is necessary to run the initialization script, e.g.,::
1da177e4 1397
a362032e 1398 # /etc/init.d/boot.local
1da177e4 1399
a362032e 1400or::
1da177e4 1401
a362032e 1402 # /etc/rc.d/rc.local
1da177e4 1403
a362032e 1404It may be desirable in such a case to create a separate script
1da177e4
LT
1405which only initializes the bonding configuration, then call that
1406separate script from within boot.local. This allows for bonding to be
1407enabled without re-running the entire global init script.
1408
a362032e 1409To shut down the bonding devices, it is necessary to first
1da177e4
LT
1410mark the bonding device itself as being down, then remove the
1411appropriate device driver modules. For our example above, you can do
a362032e 1412the following::
1da177e4 1413
a362032e
MCC
1414 # ifconfig bond0 down
1415 # rmmod bonding
1416 # rmmod e100
1da177e4 1417
a362032e 1418Again, for convenience, it may be desirable to create a script
1da177e4
LT
1419with these commands.
1420
1421
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14223.3.1 Configuring Multiple Bonds Manually
1423-----------------------------------------
1da177e4 1424
a362032e 1425This section contains information on configuring multiple
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1426bonding devices with differing options for those systems whose network
1427initialization scripts lack support for configuring multiple bonds.
1428
a362032e 1429If you require multiple bonding devices, but all with the same
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1430options, you may wish to use the "max_bonds" module parameter,
1431documented above.
1da177e4 1432
a362032e 1433To create multiple bonding devices with differing options, it is
f8b72d36 1434preferable to use bonding parameters exported by sysfs, documented in the
9a6c6867
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1435section below.
1436
a362032e 1437For versions of bonding without sysfs support, the only means to
9a6c6867
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1438provide multiple instances of bonding with differing options is to load
1439the bonding driver multiple times. Note that current versions of the
1440sysconfig network initialization scripts handle this automatically; if
1441your distro uses these scripts, no special action is needed. See the
1442section Configuring Bonding Devices, above, if you're not sure about your
1443network initialization scripts.
1444
a362032e 1445To load multiple instances of the module, it is necessary to
9a6c6867
JV
1446specify a different name for each instance (the module loading system
1447requires that every loaded module, even multiple instances of the same
1448module, have a unique name). This is accomplished by supplying multiple
a362032e 1449sets of bonding options in ``/etc/modprobe.d/*.conf``, for example::
9a6c6867 1450
a362032e
MCC
1451 alias bond0 bonding
1452 options bond0 -o bond0 mode=balance-rr miimon=100
9a6c6867 1453
a362032e
MCC
1454 alias bond1 bonding
1455 options bond1 -o bond1 mode=balance-alb miimon=50
9a6c6867 1456
a362032e 1457will load the bonding module two times. The first instance is
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1458named "bond0" and creates the bond0 device in balance-rr mode with an
1459miimon of 100. The second instance is named "bond1" and creates the
1460bond1 device in balance-alb mode with an miimon of 50.
1461
a362032e 1462In some circumstances (typically with older distributions),
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1463the above does not work, and the second bonding instance never sees
1464its options. In that case, the second options line can be substituted
a362032e 1465as follows::
9a6c6867 1466
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MCC
1467 install bond1 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install bonding -o bond1 \
1468 mode=balance-alb miimon=50
00354cfb 1469
a362032e 1470This may be repeated any number of times, specifying a new and
9a6c6867
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1471unique name in place of bond1 for each subsequent instance.
1472
a362032e 1473It has been observed that some Red Hat supplied kernels are unable
9a6c6867
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1474to rename modules at load time (the "-o bond1" part). Attempts to pass
1475that option to modprobe will produce an "Operation not permitted" error.
1476This has been reported on some Fedora Core kernels, and has been seen on
1477RHEL 4 as well. On kernels exhibiting this problem, it will be impossible
1478to configure multiple bonds with differing parameters (as they are older
1479kernels, and also lack sysfs support).
1da177e4 1480
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14813.4 Configuring Bonding Manually via Sysfs
1482------------------------------------------
1483
a362032e 1484Starting with version 3.0.0, Channel Bonding may be configured
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1485via the sysfs interface. This interface allows dynamic configuration
1486of all bonds in the system without unloading the module. It also
1487allows for adding and removing bonds at runtime. Ifenslave is no
1488longer required, though it is still supported.
1489
a362032e 1490Use of the sysfs interface allows you to use multiple bonds
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1491with different configurations without having to reload the module.
1492It also allows you to use multiple, differently configured bonds when
1493bonding is compiled into the kernel.
1494
a362032e 1495You must have the sysfs filesystem mounted to configure
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1496bonding this way. The examples in this document assume that you
1497are using the standard mount point for sysfs, e.g. /sys. If your
1498sysfs filesystem is mounted elsewhere, you will need to adjust the
1499example paths accordingly.
1500
1501Creating and Destroying Bonds
1502-----------------------------
a362032e
MCC
1503To add a new bond foo::
1504
1505 # echo +foo > /sys/class/net/bonding_masters
1506
1507To remove an existing bond bar::
6224e01d 1508
a362032e 1509 # echo -bar > /sys/class/net/bonding_masters
6224e01d 1510
a362032e 1511To show all existing bonds::
6224e01d 1512
a362032e
MCC
1513 # cat /sys/class/net/bonding_masters
1514
1515.. note::
1516
1517 due to 4K size limitation of sysfs files, this list may be
1518 truncated if you have more than a few hundred bonds. This is unlikely
1519 to occur under normal operating conditions.
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1520
1521Adding and Removing Slaves
1522--------------------------
a362032e 1523Interfaces may be enslaved to a bond using the file
6224e01d
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1524/sys/class/net/<bond>/bonding/slaves. The semantics for this file
1525are the same as for the bonding_masters file.
1526
a362032e
MCC
1527To enslave interface eth0 to bond bond0::
1528
1529 # ifconfig bond0 up
1530 # echo +eth0 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
6224e01d 1531
a362032e 1532To free slave eth0 from bond bond0::
6224e01d 1533
a362032e
MCC
1534 # echo -eth0 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
1535
1536When an interface is enslaved to a bond, symlinks between the
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1537two are created in the sysfs filesystem. In this case, you would get
1538/sys/class/net/bond0/slave_eth0 pointing to /sys/class/net/eth0, and
1539/sys/class/net/eth0/master pointing to /sys/class/net/bond0.
1540
a362032e 1541This means that you can tell quickly whether or not an
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1542interface is enslaved by looking for the master symlink. Thus:
1543# echo -eth0 > /sys/class/net/eth0/master/bonding/slaves
1544will free eth0 from whatever bond it is enslaved to, regardless of
1545the name of the bond interface.
1546
1547Changing a Bond's Configuration
1548-------------------------------
a362032e 1549Each bond may be configured individually by manipulating the
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1550files located in /sys/class/net/<bond name>/bonding
1551
a362032e 1552The names of these files correspond directly with the command-
670e9f34 1553line parameters described elsewhere in this file, and, with the
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1554exception of arp_ip_target, they accept the same values. To see the
1555current setting, simply cat the appropriate file.
1556
a362032e 1557A few examples will be given here; for specific usage
6224e01d
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1558guidelines for each parameter, see the appropriate section in this
1559document.
1560
a362032e
MCC
1561To configure bond0 for balance-alb mode::
1562
1563 # ifconfig bond0 down
1564 # echo 6 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode
1565 - or -
1566 # echo balance-alb > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode
1567
1568.. note::
1569
1570 The bond interface must be down before the mode can be changed.
1571
1572To enable MII monitoring on bond0 with a 1 second interval::
1573
1574 # echo 1000 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/miimon
1575
1576.. note::
1577
1578 If ARP monitoring is enabled, it will disabled when MII
1579 monitoring is enabled, and vice-versa.
1580
1581To add ARP targets::
1582
1583 # echo +192.168.0.100 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/arp_ip_target
1584 # echo +192.168.0.101 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/arp_ip_target
1585
1586.. note::
1587
1588 up to 16 target addresses may be specified.
1589
1590To remove an ARP target::
1591
1592 # echo -192.168.0.100 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/arp_ip_target
1593
1594To configure the interval between learning packet transmits::
1595
1596 # echo 12 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/lp_interval
1597
1598.. note::
1599
1600 the lp_interval is the number of seconds between instances where
1601 the bonding driver sends learning packets to each slaves peer switch. The
1602 default interval is 1 second.
7eacd038 1603
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1604Example Configuration
1605---------------------
a362032e 1606We begin with the same example that is shown in section 3.3,
6224e01d
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1607executed with sysfs, and without using ifenslave.
1608
a362032e 1609To make a simple bond of two e100 devices (presumed to be eth0
6224e01d
AK
1610and eth1), and have it persist across reboots, edit the appropriate
1611file (/etc/init.d/boot.local or /etc/rc.d/rc.local), and add the
a362032e 1612following::
6224e01d 1613
a362032e
MCC
1614 modprobe bonding
1615 modprobe e100
1616 echo balance-alb > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode
1617 ifconfig bond0 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
1618 echo 100 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/miimon
1619 echo +eth0 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
1620 echo +eth1 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
6224e01d 1621
a362032e 1622To add a second bond, with two e1000 interfaces in
6224e01d 1623active-backup mode, using ARP monitoring, add the following lines to
a362032e 1624your init script::
6224e01d 1625
a362032e
MCC
1626 modprobe e1000
1627 echo +bond1 > /sys/class/net/bonding_masters
1628 echo active-backup > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/mode
1629 ifconfig bond1 192.168.2.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
1630 echo +192.168.2.100 /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/arp_ip_target
1631 echo 2000 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/arp_interval
1632 echo +eth2 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/slaves
1633 echo +eth3 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/slaves
6224e01d 1634
de221bd5
NP
16353.5 Configuration with Interfaces Support
1636-----------------------------------------
1637
a362032e 1638This section applies to distros which use /etc/network/interfaces file
de221bd5
NP
1639to describe network interface configuration, most notably Debian and it's
1640derivatives.
1641
a362032e 1642The ifup and ifdown commands on Debian don't support bonding out of
de221bd5 1643the box. The ifenslave-2.6 package should be installed to provide bonding
a362032e
MCC
1644support. Once installed, this package will provide ``bond-*`` options
1645to be used into /etc/network/interfaces.
de221bd5 1646
a362032e 1647Note that ifenslave-2.6 package will load the bonding module and use
de221bd5
NP
1648the ifenslave command when appropriate.
1649
1650Example Configurations
1651----------------------
1652
1653In /etc/network/interfaces, the following stanza will configure bond0, in
a362032e 1654active-backup mode, with eth0 and eth1 as slaves::
de221bd5 1655
a362032e
MCC
1656 auto bond0
1657 iface bond0 inet dhcp
1658 bond-slaves eth0 eth1
1659 bond-mode active-backup
1660 bond-miimon 100
1661 bond-primary eth0 eth1
de221bd5
NP
1662
1663If the above configuration doesn't work, you might have a system using
1664upstart for system startup. This is most notably true for recent
1665Ubuntu versions. The following stanza in /etc/network/interfaces will
a362032e
MCC
1666produce the same result on those systems::
1667
1668 auto bond0
1669 iface bond0 inet dhcp
1670 bond-slaves none
1671 bond-mode active-backup
1672 bond-miimon 100
1673
1674 auto eth0
1675 iface eth0 inet manual
1676 bond-master bond0
1677 bond-primary eth0 eth1
1678
1679 auto eth1
1680 iface eth1 inet manual
1681 bond-master bond0
1682 bond-primary eth0 eth1
1683
1684For a full list of ``bond-*`` supported options in /etc/network/interfaces and
1685some more advanced examples tailored to you particular distros, see the files in
de221bd5
NP
1686/usr/share/doc/ifenslave-2.6.
1687
16883.6 Overriding Configuration for Special Cases
bb1d9123 1689----------------------------------------------
de221bd5 1690
bb1d9123
AG
1691When using the bonding driver, the physical port which transmits a frame is
1692typically selected by the bonding driver, and is not relevant to the user or
1693system administrator. The output port is simply selected using the policies of
1694the selected bonding mode. On occasion however, it is helpful to direct certain
1695classes of traffic to certain physical interfaces on output to implement
1696slightly more complex policies. For example, to reach a web server over a
1697bonded interface in which eth0 connects to a private network, while eth1
1698connects via a public network, it may be desirous to bias the bond to send said
1699traffic over eth0 first, using eth1 only as a fall back, while all other traffic
1700can safely be sent over either interface. Such configurations may be achieved
1701using the traffic control utilities inherent in linux.
1702
1703By default the bonding driver is multiqueue aware and 16 queues are created
e98aa682 1704when the driver initializes (see Documentation/networking/multiqueue.rst
bb1d9123
AG
1705for details). If more or less queues are desired the module parameter
1706tx_queues can be used to change this value. There is no sysfs parameter
1707available as the allocation is done at module init time.
1708
1709The output of the file /proc/net/bonding/bondX has changed so the output Queue
a362032e 1710ID is now printed for each slave::
bb1d9123 1711
a362032e
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1712 Bonding Mode: fault-tolerance (active-backup)
1713 Primary Slave: None
1714 Currently Active Slave: eth0
1715 MII Status: up
1716 MII Polling Interval (ms): 0
1717 Up Delay (ms): 0
1718 Down Delay (ms): 0
bb1d9123 1719
a362032e
MCC
1720 Slave Interface: eth0
1721 MII Status: up
1722 Link Failure Count: 0
1723 Permanent HW addr: 00:1a:a0:12:8f:cb
1724 Slave queue ID: 0
bb1d9123 1725
a362032e
MCC
1726 Slave Interface: eth1
1727 MII Status: up
1728 Link Failure Count: 0
1729 Permanent HW addr: 00:1a:a0:12:8f:cc
1730 Slave queue ID: 2
bb1d9123 1731
a362032e 1732The queue_id for a slave can be set using the command::
bb1d9123 1733
a362032e 1734 # echo "eth1:2" > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/queue_id
bb1d9123
AG
1735
1736Any interface that needs a queue_id set should set it with multiple calls
1737like the one above until proper priorities are set for all interfaces. On
1738distributions that allow configuration via initscripts, multiple 'queue_id'
1739arguments can be added to BONDING_OPTS to set all needed slave queues.
1740
1741These queue id's can be used in conjunction with the tc utility to configure
1742a multiqueue qdisc and filters to bias certain traffic to transmit on certain
1743slave devices. For instance, say we wanted, in the above configuration to
1744force all traffic bound to 192.168.1.100 to use eth1 in the bond as its output
a362032e 1745device. The following commands would accomplish this::
bb1d9123 1746
a362032e 1747 # tc qdisc add dev bond0 handle 1 root multiq
bb1d9123 1748
a362032e
MCC
1749 # tc filter add dev bond0 protocol ip parent 1: prio 1 u32 match ip \
1750 dst 192.168.1.100 action skbedit queue_mapping 2
bb1d9123
AG
1751
1752These commands tell the kernel to attach a multiqueue queue discipline to the
1753bond0 interface and filter traffic enqueued to it, such that packets with a dst
1754ip of 192.168.1.100 have their output queue mapping value overwritten to 2.
1755This value is then passed into the driver, causing the normal output path
1756selection policy to be overridden, selecting instead qid 2, which maps to eth1.
1757
1758Note that qid values begin at 1. Qid 0 is reserved to initiate to the driver
1759that normal output policy selection should take place. One benefit to simply
1760leaving the qid for a slave to 0 is the multiqueue awareness in the bonding
1761driver that is now present. This awareness allows tc filters to be placed on
1762slave devices as well as bond devices and the bonding driver will simply act as
a362032e 1763a pass-through for selecting output queues on the slave device rather than
bb1d9123
AG
1764output port selection.
1765
1766This feature first appeared in bonding driver version 3.7.0 and support for
1767output slave selection was limited to round-robin and active-backup modes.
1768
d22a5fc0
MB
17693.7 Configuring LACP for 802.3ad mode in a more secure way
1770----------------------------------------------------------
1771
1772When using 802.3ad bonding mode, the Actor (host) and Partner (switch)
1773exchange LACPDUs. These LACPDUs cannot be sniffed, because they are
1774destined to link local mac addresses (which switches/bridges are not
1775supposed to forward). However, most of the values are easily predictable
1776or are simply the machine's MAC address (which is trivially known to all
1777other hosts in the same L2). This implies that other machines in the L2
1778domain can spoof LACPDU packets from other hosts to the switch and potentially
1779cause mayhem by joining (from the point of view of the switch) another
1780machine's aggregate, thus receiving a portion of that hosts incoming
1781traffic and / or spoofing traffic from that machine themselves (potentially
1782even successfully terminating some portion of flows). Though this is not
1783a likely scenario, one could avoid this possibility by simply configuring
1784few bonding parameters:
1785
1786 (a) ad_actor_system : You can set a random mac-address that can be used for
1787 these LACPDU exchanges. The value can not be either NULL or Multicast.
1788 Also it's preferable to set the local-admin bit. Following shell code
a362032e 1789 generates a random mac-address as described above::
d22a5fc0 1790
a362032e
MCC
1791 # sys_mac_addr=$(printf '%02x:%02x:%02x:%02x:%02x:%02x' \
1792 $(( (RANDOM & 0xFE) | 0x02 )) \
1793 $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )) \
1794 $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )) \
1795 $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )) \
1796 $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )) \
1797 $(( RANDOM & 0xFF )))
1798 # echo $sys_mac_addr > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/ad_actor_system
d22a5fc0
MB
1799
1800 (b) ad_actor_sys_prio : Randomize the system priority. The default value
1801 is 65535, but system can take the value from 1 - 65535. Following shell
a362032e 1802 code generates random priority and sets it::
d22a5fc0 1803
a362032e
MCC
1804 # sys_prio=$(( 1 + RANDOM + RANDOM ))
1805 # echo $sys_prio > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/ad_actor_sys_prio
d22a5fc0
MB
1806
1807 (c) ad_user_port_key : Use the user portion of the port-key. The default
1808 keeps this empty. These are the upper 10 bits of the port-key and value
1809 ranges from 0 - 1023. Following shell code generates these 10 bits and
a362032e 1810 sets it::
d22a5fc0 1811
a362032e
MCC
1812 # usr_port_key=$(( RANDOM & 0x3FF ))
1813 # echo $usr_port_key > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/ad_user_port_key
d22a5fc0
MB
1814
1815
bb1d9123 18164 Querying Bonding Configuration
1da177e4
LT
1817=================================
1818
6224e01d 18194.1 Bonding Configuration
1da177e4
LT
1820-------------------------
1821
a362032e 1822Each bonding device has a read-only file residing in the
1da177e4
LT
1823/proc/net/bonding directory. The file contents include information
1824about the bonding configuration, options and state of each slave.
1825
a362032e 1826For example, the contents of /proc/net/bonding/bond0 after the
1da177e4 1827driver is loaded with parameters of mode=0 and miimon=1000 is
a362032e 1828generally as follows::
1da177e4
LT
1829
1830 Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: 2.6.1 (October 29, 2004)
a362032e
MCC
1831 Bonding Mode: load balancing (round-robin)
1832 Currently Active Slave: eth0
1833 MII Status: up
1834 MII Polling Interval (ms): 1000
1835 Up Delay (ms): 0
1836 Down Delay (ms): 0
1837
1838 Slave Interface: eth1
1839 MII Status: up
1840 Link Failure Count: 1
1841
1842 Slave Interface: eth0
1843 MII Status: up
1844 Link Failure Count: 1
1845
1846The precise format and contents will change depending upon the
1da177e4
LT
1847bonding configuration, state, and version of the bonding driver.
1848
6224e01d 18494.2 Network configuration
1da177e4
LT
1850-------------------------
1851
a362032e 1852The network configuration can be inspected using the ifconfig
1da177e4
LT
1853command. Bonding devices will have the MASTER flag set; Bonding slave
1854devices will have the SLAVE flag set. The ifconfig output does not
1855contain information on which slaves are associated with which masters.
1856
a362032e 1857In the example below, the bond0 interface is the master
1da177e4
LT
1858(MASTER) while eth0 and eth1 are slaves (SLAVE). Notice all slaves of
1859bond0 have the same MAC address (HWaddr) as bond0 for all modes except
a362032e
MCC
1860TLB and ALB that require a unique MAC address for each slave::
1861
1862 # /sbin/ifconfig
1863 bond0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:C0:F0:1F:37:B4
1864 inet addr:XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY Bcast:XXX.XXX.XXX.255 Mask:255.255.252.0
1865 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MASTER MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
1866 RX packets:7224794 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
1867 TX packets:3286647 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:1 carrier:0
1868 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
1869
1870 eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:C0:F0:1F:37:B4
1871 UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
1872 RX packets:3573025 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
1873 TX packets:1643167 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:1 carrier:0
1874 collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
1875 Interrupt:10 Base address:0x1080
1876
1877 eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:C0:F0:1F:37:B4
1878 UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
1879 RX packets:3651769 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
1880 TX packets:1643480 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
1881 collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
1882 Interrupt:9 Base address:0x1400
1da177e4 1883
6224e01d 18845. Switch Configuration
1da177e4
LT
1885=======================
1886
a362032e 1887For this section, "switch" refers to whatever system the
1da177e4
LT
1888bonded devices are directly connected to (i.e., where the other end of
1889the cable plugs into). This may be an actual dedicated switch device,
1890or it may be another regular system (e.g., another computer running
1891Linux),
1892
a362032e 1893The active-backup, balance-tlb and balance-alb modes do not
1da177e4
LT
1894require any specific configuration of the switch.
1895
a362032e 1896The 802.3ad mode requires that the switch have the appropriate
1da177e4
LT
1897ports configured as an 802.3ad aggregation. The precise method used
1898to configure this varies from switch to switch, but, for example, a
1899Cisco 3550 series switch requires that the appropriate ports first be
1900grouped together in a single etherchannel instance, then that
1901etherchannel is set to mode "lacp" to enable 802.3ad (instead of
1902standard EtherChannel).
1903
a362032e 1904The balance-rr, balance-xor and broadcast modes generally
1da177e4
LT
1905require that the switch have the appropriate ports grouped together.
1906The nomenclature for such a group differs between switches, it may be
1907called an "etherchannel" (as in the Cisco example, above), a "trunk
1908group" or some other similar variation. For these modes, each switch
1909will also have its own configuration options for the switch's transmit
1910policy to the bond. Typical choices include XOR of either the MAC or
1911IP addresses. The transmit policy of the two peers does not need to
1912match. For these three modes, the bonding mode really selects a
1913transmit policy for an EtherChannel group; all three will interoperate
1914with another EtherChannel group.
1915
1916
6224e01d 19176. 802.1q VLAN Support
1da177e4
LT
1918======================
1919
a362032e 1920It is possible to configure VLAN devices over a bond interface
1da177e4
LT
1921using the 8021q driver. However, only packets coming from the 8021q
1922driver and passing through bonding will be tagged by default. Self
1923generated packets, for example, bonding's learning packets or ARP
1924packets generated by either ALB mode or the ARP monitor mechanism, are
1925tagged internally by bonding itself. As a result, bonding must
1926"learn" the VLAN IDs configured above it, and use those IDs to tag
1927self generated packets.
1928
a362032e 1929For reasons of simplicity, and to support the use of adapters
00354cfb
JV
1930that can do VLAN hardware acceleration offloading, the bonding
1931interface declares itself as fully hardware offloading capable, it gets
1da177e4
LT
1932the add_vid/kill_vid notifications to gather the necessary
1933information, and it propagates those actions to the slaves. In case
1934of mixed adapter types, hardware accelerated tagged packets that
1935should go through an adapter that is not offloading capable are
1936"un-accelerated" by the bonding driver so the VLAN tag sits in the
1937regular location.
1938
a362032e 1939VLAN interfaces *must* be added on top of a bonding interface
1da177e4
LT
1940only after enslaving at least one slave. The bonding interface has a
1941hardware address of 00:00:00:00:00:00 until the first slave is added.
1942If the VLAN interface is created prior to the first enslavement, it
1943would pick up the all-zeroes hardware address. Once the first slave
1944is attached to the bond, the bond device itself will pick up the
1945slave's hardware address, which is then available for the VLAN device.
1946
a362032e 1947Also, be aware that a similar problem can occur if all slaves
1da177e4
LT
1948are released from a bond that still has one or more VLAN interfaces on
1949top of it. When a new slave is added, the bonding interface will
1950obtain its hardware address from the first slave, which might not
1951match the hardware address of the VLAN interfaces (which was
1952ultimately copied from an earlier slave).
1953
a362032e 1954There are two methods to insure that the VLAN device operates
1da177e4
LT
1955with the correct hardware address if all slaves are removed from a
1956bond interface:
1957
a362032e 19581. Remove all VLAN interfaces then recreate them
1da177e4 1959
a362032e 19602. Set the bonding interface's hardware address so that it
1da177e4
LT
1961matches the hardware address of the VLAN interfaces.
1962
a362032e 1963Note that changing a VLAN interface's HW address would set the
00354cfb 1964underlying device -- i.e. the bonding interface -- to promiscuous
1da177e4
LT
1965mode, which might not be what you want.
1966
1967
6224e01d 19687. Link Monitoring
1da177e4
LT
1969==================
1970
a362032e 1971The bonding driver at present supports two schemes for
1da177e4
LT
1972monitoring a slave device's link state: the ARP monitor and the MII
1973monitor.
1974
a362032e 1975At the present time, due to implementation restrictions in the
1da177e4
LT
1976bonding driver itself, it is not possible to enable both ARP and MII
1977monitoring simultaneously.
1978
6224e01d 19797.1 ARP Monitor Operation
1da177e4
LT
1980-------------------------
1981
a362032e 1982The ARP monitor operates as its name suggests: it sends ARP
1da177e4
LT
1983queries to one or more designated peer systems on the network, and
1984uses the response as an indication that the link is operating. This
1985gives some assurance that traffic is actually flowing to and from one
1986or more peers on the local network.
1987
6224e01d 19887.2 Configuring Multiple ARP Targets
1da177e4
LT
1989------------------------------------
1990
a362032e 1991While ARP monitoring can be done with just one target, it can
1da177e4
LT
1992be useful in a High Availability setup to have several targets to
1993monitor. In the case of just one target, the target itself may go
1994down or have a problem making it unresponsive to ARP requests. Having
1995an additional target (or several) increases the reliability of the ARP
1996monitoring.
1997
a362032e 1998Multiple ARP targets must be separated by commas as follows::
1da177e4 1999
a362032e
MCC
2000 # example options for ARP monitoring with three targets
2001 alias bond0 bonding
2002 options bond0 arp_interval=60 arp_ip_target=192.168.0.1,192.168.0.3,192.168.0.9
1da177e4 2003
a362032e 2004For just a single target the options would resemble::
1da177e4 2005
a362032e
MCC
2006 # example options for ARP monitoring with one target
2007 alias bond0 bonding
2008 options bond0 arp_interval=60 arp_ip_target=192.168.0.100
1da177e4
LT
2009
2010
6224e01d 20117.3 MII Monitor Operation
1da177e4
LT
2012-------------------------
2013
a362032e 2014The MII monitor monitors only the carrier state of the local
1da177e4
LT
2015network interface. It accomplishes this in one of three ways: by
2016depending upon the device driver to maintain its carrier state, by
2017querying the device's MII registers, or by making an ethtool query to
2018the device.
2019
a362032e 2020If the use_carrier module parameter is 1 (the default value),
1da177e4
LT
2021then the MII monitor will rely on the driver for carrier state
2022information (via the netif_carrier subsystem). As explained in the
2023use_carrier parameter information, above, if the MII monitor fails to
2024detect carrier loss on the device (e.g., when the cable is physically
2025disconnected), it may be that the driver does not support
2026netif_carrier.
2027
a362032e 2028If use_carrier is 0, then the MII monitor will first query the
1da177e4
LT
2029device's (via ioctl) MII registers and check the link state. If that
2030request fails (not just that it returns carrier down), then the MII
2353db75 2031monitor will make an ethtool ETHTOOL_GLINK request to attempt to obtain
1da177e4
LT
2032the same information. If both methods fail (i.e., the driver either
2033does not support or had some error in processing both the MII register
2034and ethtool requests), then the MII monitor will assume the link is
2035up.
2036
6224e01d 20378. Potential Sources of Trouble
1da177e4
LT
2038===============================
2039
6224e01d 20408.1 Adventures in Routing
1da177e4
LT
2041-------------------------
2042
a362032e 2043When bonding is configured, it is important that the slave
6224e01d 2044devices not have routes that supersede routes of the master (or,
1da177e4
LT
2045generally, not have routes at all). For example, suppose the bonding
2046device bond0 has two slaves, eth0 and eth1, and the routing table is
a362032e 2047as follows::
1da177e4 2048
a362032e
MCC
2049 Kernel IP routing table
2050 Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
2051 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 40 0 0 eth0
2052 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 40 0 0 eth1
2053 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 40 0 0 bond0
2054 127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 40 0 0 lo
1da177e4 2055
a362032e 2056This routing configuration will likely still update the
1da177e4
LT
2057receive/transmit times in the driver (needed by the ARP monitor), but
2058may bypass the bonding driver (because outgoing traffic to, in this
2059case, another host on network 10 would use eth0 or eth1 before bond0).
2060
a362032e 2061The ARP monitor (and ARP itself) may become confused by this
1da177e4
LT
2062configuration, because ARP requests (generated by the ARP monitor)
2063will be sent on one interface (bond0), but the corresponding reply
2064will arrive on a different interface (eth0). This reply looks to ARP
2065as an unsolicited ARP reply (because ARP matches replies on an
2066interface basis), and is discarded. The MII monitor is not affected
2067by the state of the routing table.
2068
a362032e 2069The solution here is simply to insure that slaves do not have
1da177e4 2070routes of their own, and if for some reason they must, those routes do
6224e01d 2071not supersede routes of their master. This should generally be the
1da177e4
LT
2072case, but unusual configurations or errant manual or automatic static
2073route additions may cause trouble.
2074
6224e01d 20758.2 Ethernet Device Renaming
1da177e4
LT
2076----------------------------
2077
a362032e 2078On systems with network configuration scripts that do not
1da177e4
LT
2079associate physical devices directly with network interface names (so
2080that the same physical device always has the same "ethX" name), it may
970e2486
LDM
2081be necessary to add some special logic to config files in
2082/etc/modprobe.d/.
1da177e4 2083
a362032e 2084For example, given a modules.conf containing the following::
1da177e4 2085
a362032e
MCC
2086 alias bond0 bonding
2087 options bond0 mode=some-mode miimon=50
2088 alias eth0 tg3
2089 alias eth1 tg3
2090 alias eth2 e1000
2091 alias eth3 e1000
1da177e4 2092
a362032e 2093If neither eth0 and eth1 are slaves to bond0, then when the
1da177e4
LT
2094bond0 interface comes up, the devices may end up reordered. This
2095happens because bonding is loaded first, then its slave device's
2096drivers are loaded next. Since no other drivers have been loaded,
2097when the e1000 driver loads, it will receive eth0 and eth1 for its
2098devices, but the bonding configuration tries to enslave eth2 and eth3
2099(which may later be assigned to the tg3 devices).
2100
a362032e 2101Adding the following::
1da177e4 2102
a362032e 2103 add above bonding e1000 tg3
1da177e4 2104
a362032e 2105causes modprobe to load e1000 then tg3, in that order, when
1da177e4
LT
2106bonding is loaded. This command is fully documented in the
2107modules.conf manual page.
2108
a362032e 2109On systems utilizing modprobe an equivalent problem can occur.
970e2486 2110In this case, the following can be added to config files in
a362032e 2111/etc/modprobe.d/ as::
1da177e4 2112
a362032e 2113 softdep bonding pre: tg3 e1000
1da177e4 2114
a362032e 2115This will load tg3 and e1000 modules before loading the bonding one.
970e2486
LDM
2116Full documentation on this can be found in the modprobe.d and modprobe
2117manual pages.
1da177e4 2118
6224e01d 21198.3. Painfully Slow Or No Failed Link Detection By Miimon
1da177e4
LT
2120---------------------------------------------------------
2121
a362032e 2122By default, bonding enables the use_carrier option, which
1da177e4
LT
2123instructs bonding to trust the driver to maintain carrier state.
2124
a362032e 2125As discussed in the options section, above, some drivers do
1da177e4
LT
2126not support the netif_carrier_on/_off link state tracking system.
2127With use_carrier enabled, bonding will always see these links as up,
2128regardless of their actual state.
2129
a362032e 2130Additionally, other drivers do support netif_carrier, but do
1da177e4
LT
2131not maintain it in real time, e.g., only polling the link state at
2132some fixed interval. In this case, miimon will detect failures, but
2133only after some long period of time has expired. If it appears that
2134miimon is very slow in detecting link failures, try specifying
2135use_carrier=0 to see if that improves the failure detection time. If
2136it does, then it may be that the driver checks the carrier state at a
2137fixed interval, but does not cache the MII register values (so the
2138use_carrier=0 method of querying the registers directly works). If
2139use_carrier=0 does not improve the failover, then the driver may cache
2140the registers, or the problem may be elsewhere.
2141
a362032e 2142Also, remember that miimon only checks for the device's
1da177e4
LT
2143carrier state. It has no way to determine the state of devices on or
2144beyond other ports of a switch, or if a switch is refusing to pass
2145traffic while still maintaining carrier on.
2146
6224e01d 21479. SNMP agents
1da177e4
LT
2148===============
2149
a362032e 2150If running SNMP agents, the bonding driver should be loaded
1da177e4 2151before any network drivers participating in a bond. This requirement
d533f671 2152is due to the interface index (ipAdEntIfIndex) being associated to
1da177e4
LT
2153the first interface found with a given IP address. That is, there is
2154only one ipAdEntIfIndex for each IP address. For example, if eth0 and
2155eth1 are slaves of bond0 and the driver for eth0 is loaded before the
2156bonding driver, the interface for the IP address will be associated
2157with the eth0 interface. This configuration is shown below, the IP
2158address 192.168.1.1 has an interface index of 2 which indexes to eth0
2159in the ifDescr table (ifDescr.2).
2160
a362032e
MCC
2161::
2162
1da177e4
LT
2163 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.1 = lo
2164 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.2 = eth0
2165 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.3 = eth1
2166 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.4 = eth2
2167 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.5 = eth3
2168 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.6 = bond0
2169 ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.10.10.10.10 = 5
2170 ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.192.168.1.1 = 2
2171 ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.10.74.20.94 = 4
2172 ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.127.0.0.1 = 1
2173
a362032e 2174This problem is avoided by loading the bonding driver before
1da177e4
LT
2175any network drivers participating in a bond. Below is an example of
2176loading the bonding driver first, the IP address 192.168.1.1 is
2177correctly associated with ifDescr.2.
2178
2179 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.1 = lo
2180 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.2 = bond0
2181 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.3 = eth0
2182 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.4 = eth1
2183 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.5 = eth2
2184 interfaces.ifTable.ifEntry.ifDescr.6 = eth3
2185 ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.10.10.10.10 = 6
2186 ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.192.168.1.1 = 2
2187 ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.10.74.20.94 = 5
2188 ip.ipAddrTable.ipAddrEntry.ipAdEntIfIndex.127.0.0.1 = 1
2189
a362032e 2190While some distributions may not report the interface name in
1da177e4
LT
2191ifDescr, the association between the IP address and IfIndex remains
2192and SNMP functions such as Interface_Scan_Next will report that
2193association.
2194
6224e01d 219510. Promiscuous mode
1da177e4
LT
2196====================
2197
a362032e 2198When running network monitoring tools, e.g., tcpdump, it is
1da177e4
LT
2199common to enable promiscuous mode on the device, so that all traffic
2200is seen (instead of seeing only traffic destined for the local host).
2201The bonding driver handles promiscuous mode changes to the bonding
00354cfb 2202master device (e.g., bond0), and propagates the setting to the slave
1da177e4
LT
2203devices.
2204
a362032e 2205For the balance-rr, balance-xor, broadcast, and 802.3ad modes,
00354cfb 2206the promiscuous mode setting is propagated to all slaves.
1da177e4 2207
a362032e 2208For the active-backup, balance-tlb and balance-alb modes, the
00354cfb 2209promiscuous mode setting is propagated only to the active slave.
1da177e4 2210
a362032e 2211For balance-tlb mode, the active slave is the slave currently
1da177e4
LT
2212receiving inbound traffic.
2213
a362032e 2214For balance-alb mode, the active slave is the slave used as a
1da177e4
LT
2215"primary." This slave is used for mode-specific control traffic, for
2216sending to peers that are unassigned or if the load is unbalanced.
2217
a362032e 2218For the active-backup, balance-tlb and balance-alb modes, when
1da177e4 2219the active slave changes (e.g., due to a link failure), the
00354cfb 2220promiscuous setting will be propagated to the new active slave.
1da177e4 2221
6224e01d 222211. Configuring Bonding for High Availability
00354cfb 2223=============================================
1da177e4 2224
a362032e 2225High Availability refers to configurations that provide
1da177e4 2226maximum network availability by having redundant or backup devices,
00354cfb
JV
2227links or switches between the host and the rest of the world. The
2228goal is to provide the maximum availability of network connectivity
2229(i.e., the network always works), even though other configurations
2230could provide higher throughput.
1da177e4 2231
6224e01d 223211.1 High Availability in a Single Switch Topology
1da177e4
LT
2233--------------------------------------------------
2234
a362032e 2235If two hosts (or a host and a single switch) are directly
00354cfb
JV
2236connected via multiple physical links, then there is no availability
2237penalty to optimizing for maximum bandwidth. In this case, there is
2238only one switch (or peer), so if it fails, there is no alternative
2239access to fail over to. Additionally, the bonding load balance modes
2240support link monitoring of their members, so if individual links fail,
2241the load will be rebalanced across the remaining devices.
2242
a362032e 2243See Section 12, "Configuring Bonding for Maximum Throughput"
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2244for information on configuring bonding with one peer device.
2245
6224e01d 224611.2 High Availability in a Multiple Switch Topology
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2247----------------------------------------------------
2248
a362032e 2249With multiple switches, the configuration of bonding and the
00354cfb
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2250network changes dramatically. In multiple switch topologies, there is
2251a trade off between network availability and usable bandwidth.
2252
a362032e
MCC
2253Below is a sample network, configured to maximize the
2254availability of the network::
2255
2256 | |
2257 |port3 port3|
2258 +-----+----+ +-----+----+
2259 | |port2 ISL port2| |
2260 | switch A +--------------------------+ switch B |
2261 | | | |
2262 +-----+----+ +-----++---+
2263 |port1 port1|
2264 | +-------+ |
2265 +-------------+ host1 +---------------+
2266 eth0 +-------+ eth1
2267
2268In this configuration, there is a link between the two
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2269switches (ISL, or inter switch link), and multiple ports connecting to
2270the outside world ("port3" on each switch). There is no technical
2271reason that this could not be extended to a third switch.
1da177e4 2272
6224e01d 227311.2.1 HA Bonding Mode Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
00354cfb 2274-------------------------------------------------------------
1da177e4 2275
a362032e 2276In a topology such as the example above, the active-backup and
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2277broadcast modes are the only useful bonding modes when optimizing for
2278availability; the other modes require all links to terminate on the
2279same peer for them to behave rationally.
2280
a362032e
MCC
2281active-backup:
2282 This is generally the preferred mode, particularly if
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2283 the switches have an ISL and play together well. If the
2284 network configuration is such that one switch is specifically
2285 a backup switch (e.g., has lower capacity, higher cost, etc),
2286 then the primary option can be used to insure that the
2287 preferred link is always used when it is available.
2288
a362032e
MCC
2289broadcast:
2290 This mode is really a special purpose mode, and is suitable
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2291 only for very specific needs. For example, if the two
2292 switches are not connected (no ISL), and the networks beyond
2293 them are totally independent. In this case, if it is
2294 necessary for some specific one-way traffic to reach both
2295 independent networks, then the broadcast mode may be suitable.
2296
6224e01d 229711.2.2 HA Link Monitoring Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
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2298----------------------------------------------------------------
2299
a362032e 2300The choice of link monitoring ultimately depends upon your
00354cfb
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2301switch. If the switch can reliably fail ports in response to other
2302failures, then either the MII or ARP monitors should work. For
2303example, in the above example, if the "port3" link fails at the remote
2304end, the MII monitor has no direct means to detect this. The ARP
2305monitor could be configured with a target at the remote end of port3,
2306thus detecting that failure without switch support.
2307
a362032e 2308In general, however, in a multiple switch topology, the ARP
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2309monitor can provide a higher level of reliability in detecting end to
2310end connectivity failures (which may be caused by the failure of any
2311individual component to pass traffic for any reason). Additionally,
2312the ARP monitor should be configured with multiple targets (at least
2313one for each switch in the network). This will insure that,
2314regardless of which switch is active, the ARP monitor has a suitable
2315target to query.
2316
a362032e 2317Note, also, that of late many switches now support a functionality
9a6c6867
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2318generally referred to as "trunk failover." This is a feature of the
2319switch that causes the link state of a particular switch port to be set
2320down (or up) when the state of another switch port goes down (or up).
19f59460 2321Its purpose is to propagate link failures from logically "exterior" ports
9a6c6867
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2322to the logically "interior" ports that bonding is able to monitor via
2323miimon. Availability and configuration for trunk failover varies by
2324switch, but this can be a viable alternative to the ARP monitor when using
2325suitable switches.
00354cfb 2326
6224e01d 232712. Configuring Bonding for Maximum Throughput
00354cfb
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2328==============================================
2329
6224e01d 233012.1 Maximizing Throughput in a Single Switch Topology
00354cfb
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2331------------------------------------------------------
2332
a362032e 2333In a single switch configuration, the best method to maximize
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2334throughput depends upon the application and network environment. The
2335various load balancing modes each have strengths and weaknesses in
2336different environments, as detailed below.
2337
a362032e 2338For this discussion, we will break down the topologies into
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2339two categories. Depending upon the destination of most traffic, we
2340categorize them into either "gatewayed" or "local" configurations.
2341
a362032e 2342In a gatewayed configuration, the "switch" is acting primarily
00354cfb 2343as a router, and the majority of traffic passes through this router to
a362032e 2344other networks. An example would be the following::
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2345
2346
2347 +----------+ +----------+
2348 | |eth0 port1| | to other networks
2349 | Host A +---------------------+ router +------------------->
2350 | +---------------------+ | Hosts B and C are out
2351 | |eth1 port2| | here somewhere
2352 +----------+ +----------+
2353
a362032e 2354The router may be a dedicated router device, or another host
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2355acting as a gateway. For our discussion, the important point is that
2356the majority of traffic from Host A will pass through the router to
2357some other network before reaching its final destination.
2358
a362032e 2359In a gatewayed network configuration, although Host A may
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2360communicate with many other systems, all of its traffic will be sent
2361and received via one other peer on the local network, the router.
2362
a362032e 2363Note that the case of two systems connected directly via
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2364multiple physical links is, for purposes of configuring bonding, the
2365same as a gatewayed configuration. In that case, it happens that all
2366traffic is destined for the "gateway" itself, not some other network
2367beyond the gateway.
2368
a362032e 2369In a local configuration, the "switch" is acting primarily as
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2370a switch, and the majority of traffic passes through this switch to
2371reach other stations on the same network. An example would be the
a362032e 2372following::
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2373
2374 +----------+ +----------+ +--------+
2375 | |eth0 port1| +-------+ Host B |
2376 | Host A +------------+ switch |port3 +--------+
2377 | +------------+ | +--------+
2378 | |eth1 port2| +------------------+ Host C |
2379 +----------+ +----------+port4 +--------+
2380
2381
a362032e 2382Again, the switch may be a dedicated switch device, or another
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2383host acting as a gateway. For our discussion, the important point is
2384that the majority of traffic from Host A is destined for other hosts
2385on the same local network (Hosts B and C in the above example).
2386
a362032e 2387In summary, in a gatewayed configuration, traffic to and from
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2388the bonded device will be to the same MAC level peer on the network
2389(the gateway itself, i.e., the router), regardless of its final
2390destination. In a local configuration, traffic flows directly to and
2391from the final destinations, thus, each destination (Host B, Host C)
2392will be addressed directly by their individual MAC addresses.
2393
a362032e 2394This distinction between a gatewayed and a local network
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2395configuration is important because many of the load balancing modes
2396available use the MAC addresses of the local network source and
2397destination to make load balancing decisions. The behavior of each
2398mode is described below.
2399
2400
6224e01d 240112.1.1 MT Bonding Mode Selection for Single Switch Topology
00354cfb 2402-----------------------------------------------------------
1da177e4 2403
a362032e 2404This configuration is the easiest to set up and to understand,
1da177e4 2405although you will have to decide which bonding mode best suits your
00354cfb 2406needs. The trade offs for each mode are detailed below:
1da177e4 2407
a362032e
MCC
2408balance-rr:
2409 This mode is the only mode that will permit a single
1da177e4
LT
2410 TCP/IP connection to stripe traffic across multiple
2411 interfaces. It is therefore the only mode that will allow a
2412 single TCP/IP stream to utilize more than one interface's
2413 worth of throughput. This comes at a cost, however: the
9a6c6867 2414 striping generally results in peer systems receiving packets out
1da177e4
LT
2415 of order, causing TCP/IP's congestion control system to kick
2416 in, often by retransmitting segments.
2417
2418 It is possible to adjust TCP/IP's congestion limits by
2419 altering the net.ipv4.tcp_reordering sysctl parameter. The
dca145ff
ED
2420 usual default value is 3. But keep in mind TCP stack is able
2421 to automatically increase this when it detects reorders.
1da177e4 2422
9a6c6867
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2423 Note that the fraction of packets that will be delivered out of
2424 order is highly variable, and is unlikely to be zero. The level
2425 of reordering depends upon a variety of factors, including the
2426 networking interfaces, the switch, and the topology of the
2427 configuration. Speaking in general terms, higher speed network
2428 cards produce more reordering (due to factors such as packet
2429 coalescing), and a "many to many" topology will reorder at a
2430 higher rate than a "many slow to one fast" configuration.
2431
2432 Many switches do not support any modes that stripe traffic
2433 (instead choosing a port based upon IP or MAC level addresses);
2434 for those devices, traffic for a particular connection flowing
2435 through the switch to a balance-rr bond will not utilize greater
2436 than one interface's worth of bandwidth.
00354cfb 2437
1da177e4
LT
2438 If you are utilizing protocols other than TCP/IP, UDP for
2439 example, and your application can tolerate out of order
2440 delivery, then this mode can allow for single stream datagram
2441 performance that scales near linearly as interfaces are added
2442 to the bond.
2443
2444 This mode requires the switch to have the appropriate ports
2445 configured for "etherchannel" or "trunking."
2446
a362032e
MCC
2447active-backup:
2448 There is not much advantage in this network topology to
1da177e4
LT
2449 the active-backup mode, as the inactive backup devices are all
2450 connected to the same peer as the primary. In this case, a
2451 load balancing mode (with link monitoring) will provide the
2452 same level of network availability, but with increased
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2453 available bandwidth. On the plus side, active-backup mode
2454 does not require any configuration of the switch, so it may
2455 have value if the hardware available does not support any of
2456 the load balance modes.
1da177e4 2457
a362032e
MCC
2458balance-xor:
2459 This mode will limit traffic such that packets destined
1da177e4
LT
2460 for specific peers will always be sent over the same
2461 interface. Since the destination is determined by the MAC
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2462 addresses involved, this mode works best in a "local" network
2463 configuration (as described above), with destinations all on
2464 the same local network. This mode is likely to be suboptimal
2465 if all your traffic is passed through a single router (i.e., a
2466 "gatewayed" network configuration, as described above).
2467
2468 As with balance-rr, the switch ports need to be configured for
1da177e4
LT
2469 "etherchannel" or "trunking."
2470
a362032e
MCC
2471broadcast:
2472 Like active-backup, there is not much advantage to this
1da177e4
LT
2473 mode in this type of network topology.
2474
a362032e
MCC
2475802.3ad:
2476 This mode can be a good choice for this type of network
1da177e4
LT
2477 topology. The 802.3ad mode is an IEEE standard, so all peers
2478 that implement 802.3ad should interoperate well. The 802.3ad
2479 protocol includes automatic configuration of the aggregates,
2480 so minimal manual configuration of the switch is needed
2481 (typically only to designate that some set of devices is
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2482 available for 802.3ad). The 802.3ad standard also mandates
2483 that frames be delivered in order (within certain limits), so
2484 in general single connections will not see misordering of
1da177e4
LT
2485 packets. The 802.3ad mode does have some drawbacks: the
2486 standard mandates that all devices in the aggregate operate at
2487 the same speed and duplex. Also, as with all bonding load
2488 balance modes other than balance-rr, no single connection will
2489 be able to utilize more than a single interface's worth of
a362032e 2490 bandwidth.
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2491
2492 Additionally, the linux bonding 802.3ad implementation
92abf750
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2493 distributes traffic by peer (using an XOR of MAC addresses
2494 and packet type ID), so in a "gatewayed" configuration, all
2495 outgoing traffic will generally use the same device. Incoming
2496 traffic may also end up on a single device, but that is
00a534e5 2497 dependent upon the balancing policy of the peer's 802.3ad
92abf750
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2498 implementation. In a "local" configuration, traffic will be
2499 distributed across the devices in the bond.
00354cfb
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2500
2501 Finally, the 802.3ad mode mandates the use of the MII monitor,
2502 therefore, the ARP monitor is not available in this mode.
2503
a362032e
MCC
2504balance-tlb:
2505 The balance-tlb mode balances outgoing traffic by peer.
00354cfb
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2506 Since the balancing is done according to MAC address, in a
2507 "gatewayed" configuration (as described above), this mode will
2508 send all traffic across a single device. However, in a
2509 "local" network configuration, this mode balances multiple
2510 local network peers across devices in a vaguely intelligent
2511 manner (not a simple XOR as in balance-xor or 802.3ad mode),
2512 so that mathematically unlucky MAC addresses (i.e., ones that
2513 XOR to the same value) will not all "bunch up" on a single
2514 interface.
2515
2516 Unlike 802.3ad, interfaces may be of differing speeds, and no
2517 special switch configuration is required. On the down side,
2518 in this mode all incoming traffic arrives over a single
2519 interface, this mode requires certain ethtool support in the
2520 network device driver of the slave interfaces, and the ARP
2521 monitor is not available.
2522
a362032e
MCC
2523balance-alb:
2524 This mode is everything that balance-tlb is, and more.
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2525 It has all of the features (and restrictions) of balance-tlb,
2526 and will also balance incoming traffic from local network
2527 peers (as described in the Bonding Module Options section,
2528 above).
2529
2530 The only additional down side to this mode is that the network
2531 device driver must support changing the hardware address while
2532 the device is open.
2533
6224e01d 253412.1.2 MT Link Monitoring for Single Switch Topology
00354cfb 2535----------------------------------------------------
1da177e4 2536
a362032e 2537The choice of link monitoring may largely depend upon which
1da177e4
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2538mode you choose to use. The more advanced load balancing modes do not
2539support the use of the ARP monitor, and are thus restricted to using
00354cfb
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2540the MII monitor (which does not provide as high a level of end to end
2541assurance as the ARP monitor).
2542
6224e01d 254312.2 Maximum Throughput in a Multiple Switch Topology
00354cfb
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2544-----------------------------------------------------
2545
a362032e 2546Multiple switches may be utilized to optimize for throughput
00354cfb 2547when they are configured in parallel as part of an isolated network
a362032e
MCC
2548between two or more systems, for example::
2549
2550 +-----------+
2551 | Host A |
2552 +-+---+---+-+
2553 | | |
2554 +--------+ | +---------+
2555 | | |
2556 +------+---+ +-----+----+ +-----+----+
2557 | Switch A | | Switch B | | Switch C |
2558 +------+---+ +-----+----+ +-----+----+
2559 | | |
2560 +--------+ | +---------+
2561 | | |
2562 +-+---+---+-+
2563 | Host B |
2564 +-----------+
2565
2566In this configuration, the switches are isolated from one
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2567another. One reason to employ a topology such as this is for an
2568isolated network with many hosts (a cluster configured for high
2569performance, for example), using multiple smaller switches can be more
2570cost effective than a single larger switch, e.g., on a network with 24
2571hosts, three 24 port switches can be significantly less expensive than
2572a single 72 port switch.
2573
a362032e 2574If access beyond the network is required, an individual host
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2575can be equipped with an additional network device connected to an
2576external network; this host then additionally acts as a gateway.
2577
6224e01d 257812.2.1 MT Bonding Mode Selection for Multiple Switch Topology
1da177e4
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2579-------------------------------------------------------------
2580
a362032e 2581In actual practice, the bonding mode typically employed in
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2582configurations of this type is balance-rr. Historically, in this
2583network configuration, the usual caveats about out of order packet
2584delivery are mitigated by the use of network adapters that do not do
2585any kind of packet coalescing (via the use of NAPI, or because the
2586device itself does not generate interrupts until some number of
2587packets has arrived). When employed in this fashion, the balance-rr
2588mode allows individual connections between two hosts to effectively
2589utilize greater than one interface's bandwidth.
1da177e4 2590
6224e01d 259112.2.2 MT Link Monitoring for Multiple Switch Topology
00354cfb 2592------------------------------------------------------
1da177e4 2593
a362032e 2594Again, in actual practice, the MII monitor is most often used
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2595in this configuration, as performance is given preference over
2596availability. The ARP monitor will function in this topology, but its
2597advantages over the MII monitor are mitigated by the volume of probes
2598needed as the number of systems involved grows (remember that each
2599host in the network is configured with bonding).
1da177e4 2600
6224e01d 260113. Switch Behavior Issues
00354cfb 2602==========================
1da177e4 2603
6224e01d 260413.1 Link Establishment and Failover Delays
00354cfb
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2605-------------------------------------------
2606
a362032e 2607Some switches exhibit undesirable behavior with regard to the
00354cfb 2608timing of link up and down reporting by the switch.
1da177e4 2609
a362032e 2610First, when a link comes up, some switches may indicate that
1da177e4
LT
2611the link is up (carrier available), but not pass traffic over the
2612interface for some period of time. This delay is typically due to
2613some type of autonegotiation or routing protocol, but may also occur
2614during switch initialization (e.g., during recovery after a switch
2615failure). If you find this to be a problem, specify an appropriate
2616value to the updelay bonding module option to delay the use of the
2617relevant interface(s).
2618
a362032e 2619Second, some switches may "bounce" the link state one or more
1da177e4
LT
2620times while a link is changing state. This occurs most commonly while
2621the switch is initializing. Again, an appropriate updelay value may
00354cfb 2622help.
1da177e4 2623
a362032e 2624Note that when a bonding interface has no active links, the
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2625driver will immediately reuse the first link that goes up, even if the
2626updelay parameter has been specified (the updelay is ignored in this
2627case). If there are slave interfaces waiting for the updelay timeout
2628to expire, the interface that first went into that state will be
2629immediately reused. This reduces down time of the network if the
2630value of updelay has been overestimated, and since this occurs only in
2631cases with no connectivity, there is no additional penalty for
2632ignoring the updelay.
1da177e4 2633
a362032e 2634In addition to the concerns about switch timings, if your
1da177e4
LT
2635switches take a long time to go into backup mode, it may be desirable
2636to not activate a backup interface immediately after a link goes down.
2637Failover may be delayed via the downdelay bonding module option.
2638
6224e01d 263913.2 Duplicated Incoming Packets
00354cfb
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2640--------------------------------
2641
a362032e 2642NOTE: Starting with version 3.0.2, the bonding driver has logic to
9a6c6867
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2643suppress duplicate packets, which should largely eliminate this problem.
2644The following description is kept for reference.
2645
a362032e 2646It is not uncommon to observe a short burst of duplicated
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2647traffic when the bonding device is first used, or after it has been
2648idle for some period of time. This is most easily observed by issuing
2649a "ping" to some other host on the network, and noticing that the
2650output from ping flags duplicates (typically one per slave).
2651
a362032e
MCC
2652For example, on a bond in active-backup mode with five slaves
2653all connected to one switch, the output may appear as follows::
2654
2655 # ping -n 10.0.4.2
2656 PING 10.0.4.2 (10.0.4.2) from 10.0.3.10 : 56(84) bytes of data.
2657 64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.7 ms
2658 64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.8 ms (DUP!)
2659 64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.8 ms (DUP!)
2660 64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.8 ms (DUP!)
2661 64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.8 ms (DUP!)
2662 64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.216 ms
2663 64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.267 ms
2664 64 bytes from 10.0.4.2: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.222 ms
2665
2666This is not due to an error in the bonding driver, rather, it
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2667is a side effect of how many switches update their MAC forwarding
2668tables. Initially, the switch does not associate the MAC address in
2669the packet with a particular switch port, and so it may send the
2670traffic to all ports until its MAC forwarding table is updated. Since
2671the interfaces attached to the bond may occupy multiple ports on a
2672single switch, when the switch (temporarily) floods the traffic to all
2673ports, the bond device receives multiple copies of the same packet
2674(one per slave device).
2675
a362032e 2676The duplicated packet behavior is switch dependent, some
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2677switches exhibit this, and some do not. On switches that display this
2678behavior, it can be induced by clearing the MAC forwarding table (on
2679most Cisco switches, the privileged command "clear mac address-table
2680dynamic" will accomplish this).
2681
6224e01d 268214. Hardware Specific Considerations
1da177e4
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2683====================================
2684
a362032e 2685This section contains additional information for configuring
1da177e4
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2686bonding on specific hardware platforms, or for interfacing bonding
2687with particular switches or other devices.
2688
6224e01d 268914.1 IBM BladeCenter
1da177e4
LT
2690--------------------
2691
a362032e 2692This applies to the JS20 and similar systems.
1da177e4 2693
a362032e 2694On the JS20 blades, the bonding driver supports only
1da177e4
LT
2695balance-rr, active-backup, balance-tlb and balance-alb modes. This is
2696largely due to the network topology inside the BladeCenter, detailed
2697below.
2698
2699JS20 network adapter information
2700--------------------------------
2701
a362032e 2702All JS20s come with two Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet ports
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2703integrated on the planar (that's "motherboard" in IBM-speak). In the
2704BladeCenter chassis, the eth0 port of all JS20 blades is hard wired to
2705I/O Module #1; similarly, all eth1 ports are wired to I/O Module #2.
2706An add-on Broadcom daughter card can be installed on a JS20 to provide
2707two more Gigabit Ethernet ports. These ports, eth2 and eth3, are
2708wired to I/O Modules 3 and 4, respectively.
1da177e4 2709
a362032e 2710Each I/O Module may contain either a switch or a passthrough
1da177e4
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2711module (which allows ports to be directly connected to an external
2712switch). Some bonding modes require a specific BladeCenter internal
2713network topology in order to function; these are detailed below.
2714
a362032e 2715Additional BladeCenter-specific networking information can be
1da177e4
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2716found in two IBM Redbooks (www.ibm.com/redbooks):
2717
a362032e
MCC
2718- "IBM eServer BladeCenter Networking Options"
2719- "IBM eServer BladeCenter Layer 2-7 Network Switching"
1da177e4
LT
2720
2721BladeCenter networking configuration
2722------------------------------------
2723
a362032e 2724Because a BladeCenter can be configured in a very large number
1da177e4
LT
2725of ways, this discussion will be confined to describing basic
2726configurations.
2727
a362032e 2728Normally, Ethernet Switch Modules (ESMs) are used in I/O
1da177e4
LT
2729modules 1 and 2. In this configuration, the eth0 and eth1 ports of a
2730JS20 will be connected to different internal switches (in the
2731respective I/O modules).
2732
a362032e 2733A passthrough module (OPM or CPM, optical or copper,
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2734passthrough module) connects the I/O module directly to an external
2735switch. By using PMs in I/O module #1 and #2, the eth0 and eth1
2736interfaces of a JS20 can be redirected to the outside world and
2737connected to a common external switch.
2738
a362032e 2739Depending upon the mix of ESMs and PMs, the network will
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2740appear to bonding as either a single switch topology (all PMs) or as a
2741multiple switch topology (one or more ESMs, zero or more PMs). It is
2742also possible to connect ESMs together, resulting in a configuration
2743much like the example in "High Availability in a Multiple Switch
2744Topology," above.
2745
2746Requirements for specific modes
2747-------------------------------
2748
a362032e 2749The balance-rr mode requires the use of passthrough modules
00354cfb
JV
2750for devices in the bond, all connected to an common external switch.
2751That switch must be configured for "etherchannel" or "trunking" on the
1da177e4
LT
2752appropriate ports, as is usual for balance-rr.
2753
a362032e 2754The balance-alb and balance-tlb modes will function with
1da177e4
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2755either switch modules or passthrough modules (or a mix). The only
2756specific requirement for these modes is that all network interfaces
2757must be able to reach all destinations for traffic sent over the
2758bonding device (i.e., the network must converge at some point outside
2759the BladeCenter).
2760
a362032e 2761The active-backup mode has no additional requirements.
1da177e4
LT
2762
2763Link monitoring issues
2764----------------------
2765
a362032e 2766When an Ethernet Switch Module is in place, only the ARP
1da177e4
LT
2767monitor will reliably detect link loss to an external switch. This is
2768nothing unusual, but examination of the BladeCenter cabinet would
2769suggest that the "external" network ports are the ethernet ports for
2770the system, when it fact there is a switch between these "external"
2771ports and the devices on the JS20 system itself. The MII monitor is
2772only able to detect link failures between the ESM and the JS20 system.
2773
a362032e 2774When a passthrough module is in place, the MII monitor does
1da177e4
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2775detect failures to the "external" port, which is then directly
2776connected to the JS20 system.
2777
2778Other concerns
2779--------------
2780
a362032e 2781The Serial Over LAN (SoL) link is established over the primary
1da177e4
LT
2782ethernet (eth0) only, therefore, any loss of link to eth0 will result
2783in losing your SoL connection. It will not fail over with other
00354cfb
JV
2784network traffic, as the SoL system is beyond the control of the
2785bonding driver.
1da177e4 2786
a362032e 2787It may be desirable to disable spanning tree on the switch
1da177e4 2788(either the internal Ethernet Switch Module, or an external switch) to
00354cfb 2789avoid fail-over delay issues when using bonding.
1da177e4 2790
a362032e 2791
6224e01d 279215. Frequently Asked Questions
1da177e4
LT
2793==============================
2794
27951. Is it SMP safe?
a362032e 2796-------------------
1da177e4 2797
a362032e 2798Yes. The old 2.0.xx channel bonding patch was not SMP safe.
1da177e4
LT
2799The new driver was designed to be SMP safe from the start.
2800
28012. What type of cards will work with it?
a362032e 2802-----------------------------------------
1da177e4 2803
a362032e 2804Any Ethernet type cards (you can even mix cards - a Intel
00354cfb
JV
2805EtherExpress PRO/100 and a 3com 3c905b, for example). For most modes,
2806devices need not be of the same speed.
1da177e4 2807
a362032e 2808Starting with version 3.2.1, bonding also supports Infiniband
9a6c6867
JV
2809slaves in active-backup mode.
2810
1da177e4 28113. How many bonding devices can I have?
a362032e 2812----------------------------------------
1da177e4 2813
a362032e 2814There is no limit.
1da177e4
LT
2815
28164. How many slaves can a bonding device have?
a362032e 2817----------------------------------------------
1da177e4 2818
a362032e 2819This is limited only by the number of network interfaces Linux
1da177e4
LT
2820supports and/or the number of network cards you can place in your
2821system.
2822
28235. What happens when a slave link dies?
a362032e 2824----------------------------------------
1da177e4 2825
a362032e 2826If link monitoring is enabled, then the failing device will be
1da177e4
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2827disabled. The active-backup mode will fail over to a backup link, and
2828other modes will ignore the failed link. The link will continue to be
2829monitored, and should it recover, it will rejoin the bond (in whatever
00354cfb
JV
2830manner is appropriate for the mode). See the sections on High
2831Availability and the documentation for each mode for additional
2832information.
a362032e
MCC
2833
2834Link monitoring can be enabled via either the miimon or
00354cfb 2835arp_interval parameters (described in the module parameters section,
1da177e4
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2836above). In general, miimon monitors the carrier state as sensed by
2837the underlying network device, and the arp monitor (arp_interval)
2838monitors connectivity to another host on the local network.
2839
a362032e 2840If no link monitoring is configured, the bonding driver will
1da177e4
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2841be unable to detect link failures, and will assume that all links are
2842always available. This will likely result in lost packets, and a
00354cfb 2843resulting degradation of performance. The precise performance loss
1da177e4
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2844depends upon the bonding mode and network configuration.
2845
28466. Can bonding be used for High Availability?
a362032e 2847----------------------------------------------
1da177e4 2848
a362032e 2849Yes. See the section on High Availability for details.
1da177e4
LT
2850
28517. Which switches/systems does it work with?
a362032e 2852---------------------------------------------
1da177e4 2853
a362032e 2854The full answer to this depends upon the desired mode.
1da177e4 2855
a362032e 2856In the basic balance modes (balance-rr and balance-xor), it
1da177e4
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2857works with any system that supports etherchannel (also called
2858trunking). Most managed switches currently available have such
00354cfb 2859support, and many unmanaged switches as well.
1da177e4 2860
a362032e 2861The advanced balance modes (balance-tlb and balance-alb) do
1da177e4
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2862not have special switch requirements, but do need device drivers that
2863support specific features (described in the appropriate section under
00354cfb 2864module parameters, above).
1da177e4 2865
a362032e 2866In 802.3ad mode, it works with systems that support IEEE
1da177e4
LT
2867802.3ad Dynamic Link Aggregation. Most managed and many unmanaged
2868switches currently available support 802.3ad.
2869
a362032e 2870The active-backup mode should work with any Layer-II switch.
1da177e4
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2871
28728. Where does a bonding device get its MAC address from?
a362032e 2873---------------------------------------------------------
1da177e4 2874
a362032e 2875When using slave devices that have fixed MAC addresses, or when
9a6c6867
JV
2876the fail_over_mac option is enabled, the bonding device's MAC address is
2877the MAC address of the active slave.
2878
a362032e 2879For other configurations, if not explicitly configured (with
9a6c6867
JV
2880ifconfig or ip link), the MAC address of the bonding device is taken from
2881its first slave device. This MAC address is then passed to all following
2882slaves and remains persistent (even if the first slave is removed) until
2883the bonding device is brought down or reconfigured.
1da177e4 2884
a362032e
MCC
2885If you wish to change the MAC address, you can set it with
2886ifconfig or ip link::
1da177e4 2887
a362032e 2888 # ifconfig bond0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55
1da177e4 2889
a362032e 2890 # ip link set bond0 address 66:77:88:99:aa:bb
00354cfb 2891
a362032e
MCC
2892The MAC address can be also changed by bringing down/up the
2893device and then changing its slaves (or their order)::
1da177e4 2894
a362032e
MCC
2895 # ifconfig bond0 down ; modprobe -r bonding
2896 # ifconfig bond0 .... up
2897 # ifenslave bond0 eth...
1da177e4 2898
a362032e 2899This method will automatically take the address from the next
1da177e4
LT
2900slave that is added.
2901
a362032e
MCC
2902To restore your slaves' MAC addresses, you need to detach them
2903from the bond (``ifenslave -d bond0 eth0``). The bonding driver will
1da177e4
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2904then restore the MAC addresses that the slaves had before they were
2905enslaved.
2906
00354cfb 290716. Resources and Links
1da177e4
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2908=======================
2909
a362032e 2910The latest version of the bonding driver can be found in the latest
1da177e4
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2911version of the linux kernel, found on http://kernel.org
2912
a362032e
MCC
2913The latest version of this document can be found in the latest kernel
2914source (named Documentation/networking/bonding.rst).
00354cfb 2915
a362032e 2916Discussions regarding the development of the bonding driver take place
a23c37f1
NP
2917on the main Linux network mailing list, hosted at vger.kernel.org. The list
2918address is:
2919
2920netdev@vger.kernel.org
2921
a362032e 2922The administrative interface (to subscribe or unsubscribe) can
a23c37f1
NP
2923be found at:
2924
2925http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html#netdev