topic Re: multiple NIC cards in Operating System - HP-UX

multiple NIC cards

Dottie Hamilton — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 21:54:57 GMT

I am looking at running multiple NIC cards from a 9000 N class 11.00 server, has anyone done this and do you have any suggestions or warrings about it.

thanks

Re: multiple NIC cards

Scott Van Kalken — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:05:42 GMT

They need to be on different subnets unless you feel like running a reset on them each time the machine boots (trap for young players as I found out).

If you're using service guard, this is quite good. I've had experience with that, and it works a treat.

Apart from the subnets, not much that I can think of off the top of my head.

If it's a database server, one place I worked at would split the traffic by card. For example, production instance 1 and 2 was card #1 and production instance 3 and 4 was card #2. This works well for keeping track of connections per instance to a database, but it's just a thought.

Scott.

Re: multiple NIC cards

Dottie Hamilton — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:10:00 GMT

great info, could you give me an example of how they setup the database server, that is what I am looking at

thanks

Re: multiple NIC cards

Uday_S_Ankolekar — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:10:18 GMT

Hi,

It's possible. Hp has somthing called Auto Port Aggregarion. (APA)

I would rather request you to read it first.

http://www.docs.hp.com/hpux/netcom/index.html#Auto%20Port%20Aggregation%20(APA)

Goodluck,
-USA..

Re: multiple NIC cards

Michael Tully — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:10:23 GMT

Hi,

You set these cards up on different subnets to
get the best out of them. You need to set up
each NIC card individually in
/etc/rc.config.d/netconf

e.g.
INTERFACE_NAME[0]="lan0"
IP_ADDRESS[0]="10.53.105.13"
SUBNET_MASK[0]="255.255.0.0"
BROADCAST_ADDRESS[0]=""
INTERFACE_STATE[0]=""
DHCP_ENABLE[0]=0

INTERFACE_NAME[0]="lan1"
IP_ADDRESS[0]="10.55.105.13"
SUBNET_MASK[0]="255.255.0.0"
BROADCAST_ADDRESS[0]=""
INTERFACE_STATE[0]=""
DHCP_ENABLE[0]=0

HTH
-Michael

Re: multiple NIC cards

Sridhar Bhaskarla — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:10:50 GMT

Hi Dottie,

You may want to configure them with different subnets.

If you want them to help you for fault tolerance, MC/ServiceGuard can easily take care of it.

If you want to add the bandwidths, then you can use HP's APA (Autoport Aggregation).

Here is the manual.

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/J4240-90012/J4240-90012.html

-Sri

Re: multiple NIC cards

A. Clay Stephenson — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:11:45 GMT

Hi Dottie:

If you need very high throughput you can bond up to 4 NIC ports to the same IP and MAC address using a product called Auto Port Aggregation (APA). It works quite well but can only be used with certain switches. This also allows redundancy so that if one cable fails, the ip address stays active at reduced capacity.

Without APA, the NIC's need to be on different subnets, this is a very common and reliable thing to do.

Regards, Clay

Re: multiple NIC cards

Craig Rants — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:11:50 GMT

If you want to run multiple ip's in the same subnet, then that can be done on the same nic. Also make sure that your /etc/rc.config.d/netconf file is setup properly, or else...

GL,
C

Re: multiple NIC cards

A. Clay Stephenson — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:13:20 GMT

Hi again Dottie:

One last point: Whatever you do, do not run auto-negotiate either on the host ports or the associated switch ports. Auto-negotiation is one of those things that almost works well.