network interfaces and auto-port aggregation.

[Stephanie Nicholls]

Ive been asked to get autoport aggregation running on a L Class running 11.00. The server currently has 2 NIC's but only one of them is configured in /etc/rc.config.d/netconf The current state of the 2nd NIC is lanscan sees it as 'UP' but ifconfig doesnt know anything about it.

With APA is it necessary to bring the 2nd NIC up as a standalone eg with its own IP address etc before it can be included in a link aggregation? If so are there any problems adding an IP address from the same subnet.

Cheers

Steph

[Michael Tully]

Hi Steph,

Using 'lanscan' will show you the 'hardware' state of the NIC.

To configure you card using 'ifconfig', see the example, also be careful that you have the correct netmask.
# ifconfig lan2 10.20.1.1 up netmask 255.255.0.0

I would say that the card has to be up in order to be able to use it. Note the comments in this posting:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x9ec291ccb36bd611abdb0090277a778c,00.html

I would avoid using more than one card on the same subnet where possible. You may need to change some settings using 'ndd' and even these may not work.

Michael

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

No, you do not want to get the second card running using the standard LAN configuration commands. APA is defined as allowing the eaxct same IP address to exist on two different LAN cards at the same time, for redundancy as well as increased throughput. However, you cannot use ordinary hubs or switches with APA as the switch must support the APA protocol. Print a copy of this manual:

http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/J4240-90016/J4240-90016_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/J4240-90016/00/00/25-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/J4240-90016/00/00/25-toc.html&searchterms=aggregation&queryid=20020708-213720

The details on setting up APA are in the install/config section.

[sven verhaegen]

Well


APA is construcyted this way that only one IP is needed , you don't even need an IP on the primary lan , there are 2 way of getting the card in apa , manually by defining them , or automatic by letting apa at startime aggregate all possible interfaces , the IP isself is set on the apa lan id lan1xx , the cards are in fact not configured at all the product bundles them into one virtual lancard which then receives the ip you want through ifconfig on the apa lan id , tas said using IP in the same range on 2 different lan interfaces isn't allowed because the network stack cannot handle it , there is no unique identifier to a given network anymore , I refer to the docs.hp.com
website , lots of doc on APA (including an install guide are to be found there)

[Brian Hackley]

Steph,

In order for an APA link to form, there must not be ANY IP addresses ifconfig'd on the lan NIC's. Otherwise you'll see an error and the lan aggregate will not form.

If you presently have lan0 in your netconf, just change that to lan900, which will be the lan formed by APA. Of course make sure you get the rest of the hp_apaconf and hp_apaportconf files set up too, per the manual. Its really pretty easy once you do it a couple of times.

On my system what I did was to remote the IP addresses and unplumb the lan cards being used in the aggregate, then edited the config files, and ran /sbin/init.d/hpapa start, and verified the lan aggegate was up e.g. with lanscan -q and lanadmin -x -v 900. After that, ifconfig lan900 inet 192.168.1.1 up and it came up and ran fine.

Hope this helps,

-> Brian Hackley

[Stephanie Nicholls]

Thanks for all the great responses, Ill be trying it out in the next few days when I can arrange some quiet time on the box.

Will let know then how it all goes.

Cheers

Steph

[Stephanie Nicholls]

Thanks all for the great help its really appreciated. I now have the aggregated link up and running - very similar to how Brian described.

Cheers

Steph