RHEL Bonding mode =1 Question

[Simon_G]

On a RHEL5 machine we have the bond1 with 2 interfaces eth3 and eth8 configured. In the ifcfg-bond1 file if i have the primary as eth8, and i ifdown eth8 then the bond1 ip stops pinging, however if i change the primary to eth3 everything works as expected. we have the primary_reselect (always) in active/backup scenario (mode 1). I am just curious to know why it works only with eth3 as primary. What would be the best way to select the primary interface? I thought it did not matter which interface you put as primary but apparently that does not seem true. One reason i could think is may be the higher amount of throughput of an interface. Both cards are identical running bnx2 driver. Any thoughts?? RHEL 5.8

Thanks

Simon 

[Jibin Antony]

Hi Simon,

Since both interfaces are working when they are primary, it looks to be good at network level.

Is that possible to share the bonding options used in your server?

Can you try switching the active slave using the command "ifenslave --change-active", instead of ifdown?

How about waiting for sometime to expire the Switch's forwarding table or ARP table?

(ref: http://h50146.www5.hp.com/products/software/oe/linux/mainstream/bin/support/doc/option/nic/bonding/bonding_v104h1_howto.txt ) 

I hope arp_interval and arp_ip_target also can help in refreshing the ARP table.

Thanks

Jibin Antony