Network Bonding is the aggregation of multiple lan cards(eth0 & eth1) into a single interface called bond interface. Network Bonding is a kernel feature and also known as NIC teaming. Bonding is generally required to provide high availability and load balancing services.
In this tutorial we will configure network bonding on CentOS 6.X and RHEL 6.X , in my case i have two Lan Cards (eth0 & eth1) & will create bond interface (bond0).
Step:1 Create the bond file ( ifcfg-bond0 ) and specify the ip address, netmask & gateway
# vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0 DEVICE=bond0 IPADDR=192.168.1.9 NETMASK=255.255.255.0 GATEWAY=192.168.1.1 TYPE=Bond ONBOOT=yes NM_CONTROLLED=no BOOTPROTO=static
Step:2 Edit the files of eth0 & eth1 and make sure you enter the master and slave entry, as shown below
# vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 DEVICE=eth0 HWADDR=08:00:27:5C:A8:8F TYPE=Ethernet ONBOOT=yes NM_CONTROLLED=no MASTER=bond0 SLAVE=yes # vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 DEVICE=eth1 TYPE=Ethernet ONBOOT=yes NM_CONTROLLED=no MASTER=bond0 SLAVE=yes
Step:3 Create the Bond file(bonding.conf)
# vi /etc/modprobe.d/bonding.conf alias bond0 bonding options bond0 mode=1 miimon=100
Different Modes used in bonding.conf file .
balance-rr or 0 — round-robin mode for fault tolerance and load balancing.
active-backup or 1 — Sets active-backup mode for fault tolerance.
balance-xor or 2 — Sets an XOR (exclusive-or) mode for fault tolerance and load balancing.
broadcast or 3 — Sets a broadcast mode for fault tolerance. All transmissions are sent on all slave interfaces.
802.3ad or 4 — Sets an IEEE 802.3ad dynamic link aggregation mode. Creates aggregation groups that share the same speed & duplex settings.
balance-tlb or 5 — Sets a Transmit Load Balancing (TLB) mode for fault tolerance & load balancing.
balance-alb or 6 — Sets an Active Load Balancing (ALB) mode for fault tolerance & load balancing.
Step:4 Now Restart the network Service
# service network restart
Using below command to Check the bond Interface
ifconfig bond0 cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0
Note: As per the output shown above , we are currently using active-backup bonding. To do the testing just disable one interface and check whether you are still accessing your machine using the bond ip.
