NIC Teaming on RH Linux server

[Jorge Cocomess]

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

[Matti_Kurkela]

"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

[Jorge Cocomess]

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

[Roberto Volsa]

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.

[Jorge Cocomess]

Hi,

Any chance I can have step by steps instructions?

Thanks,
Jorge

[YAQUB_1 · Accepted solution]

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!!!

[Jorge Cocomess]

Thank you!!

Jorge