Setting Up Network Bonding

Bonding multiple network interfaces together provides the following benefits:

1. High network availability. If one of the interfaces fails, the traffic will be automatically routed to the working interface(s).
2. Higher network performance. For example, two Gigabit interfaces bonded together will deliver about 1.7 Gbit/s or 200 MB/s throughput. The required number of bonded storage network interfaces may depend on how many storage drives are on the Hardware Node. For example, a rotational HDD can deliver up to 1 Gbit/s throughput.

To configure a bonding interface, do the following:

1. Create the /etc/modprobe.d/bonding.conf file containing the following line:

   alias bond0 bonding

2. Create the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0 file containing the following lines:

   DEVICE=bond0

   ONBOOT=yes

   BOOTPROTO=none

   IPV6INIT=no

   USERCTL=no

   BONDING_OPTS="mode=balance-xor xmit_hash_policy=layer3+4 miimon=300 downdelay=300 updelay=300"

   NAME="Storage net0"

   NM_CONTROLLED=no

   IPADDR=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

   PREFIX=24

   Notes:
   
   1. Make sure to enter the correct values in the IPADDR and PREFIX lines.
   
   2. The balance-xor mode is recommended, because it offers both fault tolerance and better performance. For more details, see the documents listed below.

3. Make sure the configuration file of each Ethernet interface you want to bond (e.g., /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 ) contains the lines shown in this example:

   DEVICE="eth0"

   BOOTPROTO=none

   NM_CONTROLLED="no"

   ONBOOT="yes"

   TYPE="Ethernet"

   HWADDR=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

   MASTER=bond0

   SLAVE=yes

   USERCTL=no

4. Bring up the bond0 interface:

   # ifup bond0

5. Use dmesg output to verify that bond0 and its slave Ethernet interfaces are up and links are ready.

Note: More information on network bonding is provided in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide and Linux Ethernet Bonding Driver HOWTO .