IP Backup

[David_492]

Dear All

if i have two ethernet port each port on different I/O Card and they are on the same network and subnet and i want to use just one IP and the other is backup in case the first one is down can i make it?(the server is HP Unix rp8400)?

Thank You

[Stefan Farrelly]

I believe you can do it but because they are on the same network and subnet you must use the software Autoport aggregation to do it.

[Steven E. Protter]

Without add in products you can run an occaisional ping test to see if the network is up.

ping -n 1 -m30 hostname
rc=$?

# if return code not equal zero ie success
if [ $rc -ne 0 ] then
#bring up backup card on the same network
else
# all is well
fi

Remember that with HP-UX you can not bring up to NIC cards on the same network.

SEP

[Stuart Abramson_2]

You can do this with MC/ServiceGuard, or with APA (auto-port-aggregation). Otherwise your "backup" is manual reconfiguration.

[rick jones]

The "best" way to do this is with Auto Port Aggregation (aka APA). It will allow you to boind the two interfaces into one aggregate, which the transport will see as a single interface. You can decide if you want active/active or active/standby.

MC/ServiceGuard I believe does just active/standby, but it has been a long time since I last looked.

Finally, if you are unwilling to spend the money for APA, but are willing to do some work, you could perhaps do some scripting with ping and/or linkloop(1m) to guesstimate when the active NIC fails, ifconfig it down and ifconfig the standby NIC into operation.

My personal suggestion is to go the APA route - when things aren't quite working you can then yell at HP rather than having to fix your scripts :)