IP Bonding or Teaming in Linux – RHEL 5

Rosario — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:25:14 +0000

IP Bonding or Teaming is a method of combining all the network interfaces togather into one with one of the types like Network Fault Tolerance, Round Robin, Back up, Loadbalancing etc. So it looks virtually as a single interface to the outside world providing high availability, based on the type you have set. Means, in a Network fault tolerant type one will take over if other fails and in a Load Balancing type trafic is shared when one busy to the other.

I got a chance of doing IP bonding in a HP Proliant Servers running RHEL 5. Everthing went well with no issues. Let me share my experience with my blog readers. In linux IP bonding is quite simple and is done with some kernel modules and no extra package is to be installed. In Windows, bonging or teaming is done with some software. With HP server, it can easily be done with some HP Network Configuration Uitlities.
Two establish IP bonding you need a minimum of two nework interfaces

Step 1:Check your network interfaces

#ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0×00000007 (7)
Link detected: yes

#ethtool eth1
Settings for eth1:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0×00000007 (7)
Link detected: yes

Step 2: Check all the requiured kernel modules are available(bonding and mii)

#modprobe –list | grep bonding

/lib/modules/2.6.18-92.el5/kernel/drivers/net/bonding/bonding.ko

# modprobe –list | grep mii

/lib/modules/2.6.18-92.el5/kernel/drivers/net/mii.ko

Step 3: Editing the modprobe.conf file

#vim /etc/modprobe.conf

and add the following lines at the end

alias bond0 bonding

options bond0 mode=1 arp_ip_target=192.168.52.1 arp_interval=200 primary=eth0

To know more about the parameters to be used here use the command

#modinfo bonding

filename: /lib/modules/2.6.18-92.el5/kernel/drivers/net/bonding/bonding.ko

author: Thomas Davis, tadavis@lbl.gov and many others

description: Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver, v3.2.4

version: 3.2.4

license: GPL

srcversion: DB2ABCD47A83F8567EBE92B

depends:

vermagic: 2.6.18-92.el5 SMP mod_unload gcc-4.1

parm: max_bonds:Max number of bonded devices (int)

parm: miimon:Link check interval in milliseconds (int)

parm: updelay:Delay before considering link up, in milliseconds (int)

parm: downdelay:Delay before considering link down, in milliseconds (int)

parm: use_carrier:Use netif_carrier_ok (vs MII ioctls) in miimon; 0 for off, 1 for on (default) (int)

parm: mode:Mode of operation : 0 for balance-rr, 1 for active-backup, 2 for balance-xor, 3 for broadcast, 4 for 802.3ad, 5 for balance-tlb, 6 for balance-alb (charp)

parm: primary:Primary network device to use (charp)

parm: lacp_rate:LACPDU tx rate to request from 802.3ad partner (slow/fast) (charp)

parm: xmit_hash_policy:XOR hashing method: 0 for layer 2 (default), 1 for layer 3+4 (charp)

parm: arp_interval:arp interval in milliseconds (int)

parm: arp_ip_target:arp targets in n.n.n.n form (array of charp)

parm: arp_validate:validate src/dst of ARP probes: none (default), active, backup or all (charp)

parm: fail_over_mac:For active-backup, do not set all slaves to the same MAC. 0 of off (default), 1 for on. (int)

module_sig: 883f35048175a9e6e24e25c96667c37112449509f5739ebf283efa5295d315b73cee5e956f6e25709cbcf2826571c5ffc20f2d87672bb921d610d7

Step 3: Now load the modules

#modprobe bonding

#modprobe mii

This will create a bond0 config file in the networks-scripts directory

Step 4: Editting the three configuration files for eth0,eth1,bond0

|# vim /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0

DEVICE=bond0

BOOTPROTO=none

ONBOOT=yes

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

IPADDR=192.168.52.4

USERCTL=no

GATEWAY=192.168.52.1

TYPE=Ethernet

IPV6INIT=no

PEERDNS=yes

#vim /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

DEVICE=eth0

BOOTPROTO=none

ONBOOT=yes

MASTER=bond0

SLAVE=yes

USERCTL=no

TYPE=Ethernet

#vim /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1

DEVICE=eth1

BOOTPROTO=none

ONBOOT=yes

MASTER=bond0

SLAVE=yes

USERCTL=no

TYPE=Ethernet

Step5: Restart your networks service

#/etc/init.d/network restart

#ifconfig

Now use ifconfig command to check the, you will look a new interface called bond0 has been created. The ip you set for it is going to be your ip address of the system. Enjoy bonding

Copying File across Between two systems in a Lan

Rosario — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:59:01 +0000

If in a Lan, Ping between two system to check the availability of the connection. If peer to peer, connect the lan cable. Assign the IP addresses for the two systems (Like 172.16.25.1 and 172.16.25.2 for both the systems, with subnet mask 255.255.255.0). That is the subnet addresses should be same for both the systems.

scp is the command that can be used for transfering files across the systems. Secure Copy(scp) uses Open SSH protocol for the file transfer. ftp can also be used for the file transfer. For using the scp command you must follow a rule. The rule is, the system you invoke this command should have the ssh client and the target system should have the ssh server(sshd). For copying the files from the source to the destination system, this command can be invoked in both source system or the destination system, but should follow the above rule.

The usage is the scp command is,

#scp username@ :/path/to/the/source/file username@ :/path/to/the/destination/file

To copy a folder from the source system to the destination use the recursive the option,

#scp -r username@ :/path/to/the/source/folder username@ :/path/to/the/destination/folder

The first user name is the user in the source system and the second username is the user in the destination system. The access privileges to the files or folder to copied or to be used as the destination folder depends on the user privileges used in the command.

LinuxMonk » Networking

IP Bonding or Teaming in Linux – RHEL 5

Copying File across Between two systems in a Lan