Implementing Resilient Server Links In Netware - 3Com ATMLINK 155 PCI User Manual

Resilient Server Links Overview 4-5
A NIC cannot be configured as a standby NIC for another
standby NIC.
A resilient server link is established only if the active NIC is
loaded before the standby NIC and is operational after
NetWare is booted.
The standby NIC cannot assume the configuration profile of
an active NIC that has never been operational.

Implementing Resilient Server Links in NetWare

In NetWare, an active NIC and all of its standby NICs must
share the same interrupt request level (IRQ). Because the PCI
bus often assigns different IRQs to devices found in the PCI
slots, you may need to use the system CMOS setup utility to
manually assign the same IRQ to the target NICs. To see the
IRQ of an ATMLink NIC, access the NIC Information screen in
the ATMLink utility (see Chapter 5).
A standby NIC must have these attributes:
One or more designated active NICs
The same link type as its active NICs
Its own card number and channel number
The Home, Link Type, Card Number, and Channel Number
parameters in the NetWare install utility are used to specify
these attributes. The corresponding keywords are home,
linktype, channel, and cardnum. See Table 4-1 and Table 4-2
later in this chapter for explanations of the NetWare install
utility parameters and keywords.
To configure standby NICs manually in the AUTOEXEC.NCF
file, use the appropriate keywords, as shown in the following
example, where card 2 is a standby NIC for cards, 1, 3, and 4.
Note that the active NICs must be loaded before the standby
NICs.
load 3c975 cardnum=1, linktype=1 channel=1 (etc.)
load 3c975 cardnum=3, linktype=1 channel=2 (etc.)
load 3c975 cardnum=4, linktype=1 channel=3 (etc.)
load 3c975 cardnum=2 linktype=1 channel=4 home=1,3,4