Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 3 Reference Manual page 125

Chapter 8. Network Interfaces
8.2.3. Channel Bonding Interfaces
Red Hat Enterprise Linux allows administrators to bind multiple network interfaces together into a
single channel using the
bonding interface. Channel bonding enables two or more network interfaces to act as one, simultane-
ously increasing the bandwidth and providing redundancy.
To create a channel bonding interface, create a file in the
directory called
ifcfg-bond N
The contents of the file can be identical to whatever type of interface that is getting bonded, such as
an Ethernet interface. The only difference is that the
with the number for the interface.
N
The following is a sample channel bonding configuration file:
DEVICE=bond0
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
NETWORK=10.0.1.0
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
IPADDR=10.0.1.27
USERCTL=no
After the channel bonding interface is created, the network interfaces to be bound together must be
configured by adding the
tion files for each of the channel bonded interfaces can be nearly identical.
For example, if channel bonding two Ethernet interfaces, both
following example:
DEVICE=eth N
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
USERCTL=no
In this example, replace
For a channel bonding interface to be valid, the kernel module must be loaded. To insure that the
module is loaded when the channel bonding interface is brought up, add the following line to
/etc/modules.conf
alias bond N bonding
Replace with the number of the interface, such as
N
interface, there must be a corresponding entry in
Once
/etc/modules.conf
are configured, the
ifup
Important
Important aspects of the channel bonding interface are controlled through the kernel module. For
more information about controlling the
Module.
kernel module and a special network interface called a channel
bonding
, replacing
and
MASTER= SLAVE=
with the numerical value for the interface.
N
:
is configured and the channel bonding interface and network interfaces
command be used to bring up the channel bonding interface.
bonding
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
with the number for the interface, such as
N
directive must be
DEVICE=
directives to their configuration files. The configura-
eth0
. For each configured channel bonding
0
/etc/modules.conf
modules, refer to Section A.3.2 The Channel Bonding
, replacing
bond N
and may look like the
eth1
.
107
.
0