How to bond 2 NIC cards with "Transmit Hash Policy" set to Layer3+4

Problem

How to bond 2 NIC cards with "Transmit Hash Policy" set to Layer3+4

Cause

2 NICs can be bonded using Netbackup 5200 shell, however, it does not allow choice of options such as xmit_hash_policy.

<hostname>.Main_Menu>network
Entering Network Administration mode...

<hostname>.Network>show
Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.0.3 (March 23, 2006)

Card: bond0 [ PLUGGED|UP|RUNNING]
BONDING_MODULE_OPTS : |mode=802.3ad miimon=100|
BOOTPROTO : |static |
DEVICE : |bond0 |
ETHTOOL_OPTIONS : |undef |
IPADDR : |192.168.50.45 |
MTU : |undef |
NETMASK : |255.255.254.0 |
NETWORK : |undef |
REMOTE_IPADDR : |undef |
STARTMODE : |auto |
USERCONTROL : |no |
COLOR_CODE : |undef |
FLAGS : |RBMmU |
LINK : |yes |
MAC : |00:1B:21:80:D1:D4 |
PORT_TYPE : |FIBRE |
SLAVES : |eth2 eth3 |
SPEED : |10000Mb/s |
 

See related documents for information about bonding NICs in Netbackup 5200

Solution

 After bonding 2 NICs using Netbackup 5200 shell, update the /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-bond0 configuration file with "xmit_hash_policy=layer3+4" in the BONDING_MODULE_OPTS line:

BONDING_MODULE_OPTS='mode=802.3ad miimon=100 xmit_hash_policy=layer3+4'

  Example:

cat /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-bond0
BONDING_MASTER='yes'
BONDING_MODULE_OPTS='mode=802.3ad miimon=100 xmit_hash_policy=layer3+4'
BONDING_SLAVE_0='eth2'
BONDING_SLAVE_1='eth3'
BOOTPROTO='static'
DEVICE='bond0'
ETHTOOL_OPTIONS=''
IPADDR='192.168.50.45'
MTU=''
NETMASK='255.255.254.0'
NETWORK=''
REMOTE_IPADDR=''
STARTMODE='auto'
USERCONTROL='no'

  Then recycled network service:

/etc/init.d/network restart

Confirm value is set from the output given by the previous command, in case an error occurred, in addition, review /var/log/messages log to make sure that no error is shown after running "netbackup restart" command.

If the server cannot communicate with other peers, the switch configuration should be checked: 

 The 802.3ad mode requires that the switch have the appropriate ports configured as an 802.3ad aggregation. The precise method used to configure this varies from switch to switch, but, for example, a Cisco 3550 series switch requires that the appropriate ports first be grouped together in a single etherchannel instance, then that etherchannel is set to mode "lacp" to enable 802.3ad (instead of standard EtherChannel)

  For more info: https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/networking/bonding#switch_configuration

Applies To

NetBackup 5200
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (x86_64)
VERSION = 10
PATCHLEVEL = 2