Deploying Suse Linux Enterprise Server
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Installing Suse Linux Enterprise Server
Network Card Bonding
Network Card Bonding (or port trunking) is the process of combining multiple network ports or adapters into a single "interface" to your network. This process has multiple benefits ranging from providing a backup network path in case one goes down to increasing the total server speed by combining the speeds of all the adapters within the "Bond".
To configure network bonds within Suse Linux Enterprise Server you utilize the same Yast Module that handles basic network configuration. Although it is not readily apparent within the Yast Module, network bonding is actually quite easy to configure and can be done either during the Installation process or later on using Yast.
The first step to take when bonding network adapters is to set the network adapter's "Device Activation" to "Never" so the adapter won't be enabled during boot until the bond "adapter" is enabled. This is found under the "General" tab of the Network Address Setup page (which is launched when you "Edit" the network adapter).
The Yast Network Module and Disabling the Network Adapter's Device Activation
Along with disabling the device activation of the network card, you must also ensure that it is set to not have an IP address. You do this by setting the card to "None Address Setup", which can be found under the "Address" tab of the Network Address Setup page.
After each adapter that you want to add to the bond is prepped with the above steps, you can now create the bond. To do this go back to the "Network Card Configuration Overview" page (where all of the adapters are listed) and click on "Add". This opens the "Manual Network Card Configuration" wizard, where you will set the type of card to "bond", then click next.
You should now be at the "Network Address Setup" page for the bond interface you just created. This page is basically the same as a normal network interface with the addition of two options. The first additional option is the ability to select which interfaces you want to include in the bond interface. If you do not have a list of adapters, ensure that you "prepped" them correctly following the steps listed above.
Setting the Adapter to "None Address Setup" and Creating the Network Bond Configuration
The second additional option presented is the ability to select the bonding driver options. This is where you specify what you want the bonding device to accomplish when using multiple adapters.
- mode=balance-rr - Round-robin policy - Transmit packets in sequential order from the first available slave through the last. This mode provides load balancing and fault tolerance.
- mode=active-backup - Active-backup policy - Only one slave in the bond is active. A different slave becomes active if, and only if, the active slave fails. The bond's MAC address is externally visible on only one port (network adapter) to avoid confusing the switch. This mode provides fault tolerance.
- mode=broadcast - Broadcast policy - transmits everything on all slave interfaces. This mode provides fault tolerance.
- mode=802.3ad - IEEE 802.3ad - Dynamic link aggregation. Creates aggregation groups that share the same speed and duplex settings. This mode requires a switch that supports IEEE 802.3ad dynamic link aggregation.
- mode=balance-tlb - Adaptive transmit load balancing - channel bonding that does not require any special switch support. The outgoing traffic is distributed according to the current load (computed relative to the speed) on each slave. Incoming traffic is received by the current slave. If the receiving slave fails, another slave takes over the MAC address of the failed receiving slave.
- mode=balance-alb -Adaptive load balancing - includes balance-tlb plus receive load balancing (rlb) for IPV4 traffic, and does not require any special switch support. The receive load balancing is achieved by ARP negotiation. The bonding driver intercepts the ARP Replies sent by the local system on their way out and overwrites the source hardware address with the unique hardware address of one of the slaves in the bond such that different peers use different hardware addresses for the server.
Configuring the Bond Network Adapter and a Final Look at the Yast Network Module
The first four modes are probably the most used, the last three do require Ethtool support within the network card driver in order to work correctly.
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