topic Re: NIC Teaming on RH Linux server in Operating System - Linux

NIC Teaming on RH Linux server

Jorge Cocomess — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:35:24 GMT

Greetings,

I have 2 dual ports NICs on my RH Linux server and I would like to take advantage of multiple NICs. My questions are:

1. Would you run NIC teaming on your server?

2. Will I improve the performance of my Linux server?

Please help a newbie.

Thanks,

Jorge

Re: NIC Teaming on RH Linux server

Matti_Kurkela — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:05:12 GMT

"NIC teaming" is apparently a Windows term for what is commonly called "NIC bonding" in Linux.

1.) If required for performance or fault-tolerance reasons, yes, of course.

2.) If your network switch can be configured to understand IEEE 802.3ad link aggregation or one of the other performance-enhancing NIC bonding modes are appropriate for your setup, then maybe yes, with some qualifications.

You must understand that NIC bonding/teaming gives additional bandwidth, which is nice but not quite the same thing as higher speed.

Think of it as adding more lanes to a highway without changing the speed limit: with more lanes, more packets (or cars) can pass through per unit of time. However, the travel time (latency) of a single packet will not be reduced at all, and may actually be slightly increased because the interface is more complex (in car analogy, think about ramps and four-leaf-clover crossings).

RedHat's Administration Guide has a chapter dedicated to NIC bonding: please read it.

MK

Re: NIC Teaming on RH Linux server

Jorge Cocomess — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:23:08 GMT

I would like to have more packages get to the server. Therefore, NIC bonding would be ideal for my needs?

Thanks for yoru time.

Jorge

Re: NIC Teaming on RH Linux server

Roberto Volsa — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:26:51 GMT

sure

more packets can get your server in the time unit.

If N packets per second can get your box with a single NIC, with bondig enalbed and configured the pachet grow to almost 2N per second (provided the sam condition externally to your box, which is quite difficult to get).
If you configure more than 2 ond NICs, dont' forget to use max_bonds=2, not specified in many texts.

Re: NIC Teaming on RH Linux server

Jorge Cocomess — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:33:02 GMT

Hi,

Any chance I can have step by steps instructions?

Thanks,
Jorge

Re: NIC Teaming on RH Linux server

YAQUB_1 — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:37:48 GMT

Hi Jorge,

Please follow the belwo URL doc:-

http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_79_899.shtm

Hope it will help for U.

Thanks-Yaqub
HP Support!!!

Re: NIC Teaming on RH Linux server

Jorge Cocomess — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:38:37 GMT

Thank you!!

Jorge