Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual page 602

Chapter 41. General Parameters and Modules
~]# echo balance-alb > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode
After configuring some options for the bond in question, you can bring it up and test it by running
ifconfig bond<N> up. If you decide to change the options, take the interface down, modify its
parameters using sysfs, bring it back up, and re-test.
Once you have determined the best set of parameters for your bond, add those parameters as
a space-separated list to the BONDING_OPTS= directive of the /etc/sysconfig/network-
scripts/ifcfg-bond<N> file for the bonded interface you are configuring. Whenever that bond
is brought up (for example, by the system during the boot sequence if the ONBOOT=yes directive
is set), the bonding options specified in the BONDING_OPTS will take effect for that bond. For more
information on configuring bonded interfaces (and BONDING_OPTS), refer to
Bonding Interfaces".
The following is a list of available channel bonding module parameters for the bonding module. For
more in-depth information on configuring channel bonding and the exhaustive list of bonding module
parameters, install the kernel-doc package and then locating and opening the included bonding.txt
file:
~]# yum -y install kernel-doc
~]# nano -w $(rpm -ql kernel-doc |grep bonding.txt)
Bonding Interface Parameters
arp_interval=<time_in_milliseconds>
Specifies (in milliseconds) how often ARP monitoring occurs.
Important
It is essential that both arp_interval and arp_ip_target parameters are
specified, or, alternatively, the miimon parameter is specified. Failure to do so can
cause degradation of network performance in the event that a link fails.
If using this setting while in mode=0 or mode=1 (the two load-balancing modes), the network
switch must be configured to distribute packets evenly across the NICs. For more information
on how to accomplish this, refer to /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<kernel_version>/
Documentation/networking/bonding.txt
The value is set to 0 by default, which disables it.
arp_ip_target=<ip_address>[,<ip_address_2>,...<ip_address_16>]
Specifies the target IP address of ARP requests when the arp_interval parameter is enabled.
Up to 16 IP addresses can be specified in a comma separated list.
arp_validate=<value>
Validate source/distribution of ARP probes; default is none. Other valid values are active,
backup, and all.
debug=<number>
Enables debug messages. Possible values are:
• 0 — Debug messages are disabled. This is the default.
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Section 14.2.3, "Channel