You can also bond two network cards together to get more network traffic throughput. This means that you need to configure your network bonding in “load-balancing” mode and make both network cards active at the same time. This way you double the network throughput to and from your server. But if you want to successfully run a “load-balancing” bonding configuration your networking infrastructure (routers, switches,…) MUST ALSO be configured for port load balancing.
1. Create bonding configuration file
Create a new file called bonding.conf in /etc/modprobe.d directory (full path – /etc/modprobe.d/bonfing.conf) and insert the following lines.
Active backup configuration (one active network card)
alias bond0 bonding
options bond0 miimon=80 mode=1
Balance-tlb configuration
alias bond0 bonding
options bond0 miimon=80 mode=1
2. Create new network interface
Create bond0 configuration file (full path – /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0) and insert the following lines.
DEVICE=bond0
IPADDR=your_ip_address
NETMASK=network_mask
GATEWAY=gateway_address
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=none
USERCTL=no
3. Edit network configuration
Change the contents of exsisting ifcfg-eth0 and ifcfg-eth1 configuration files (full path -/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1)and insert the following lines.
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=none
USERCTL=no
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1
DEVICE=eth1
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=none
USERCTL=no
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
4. Restart network
Restart networking and check the status of bonding.
[root@foo ~]# service network restart
[root@foo ~]# cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0
Bonding Mode: fault-tolerance (active-backup)
Primary Slave: None
Currently Active Slave: eth0
MII Status: up
MII Polling Interval (ms): 80
Up Delay (ms): 0
Down Delay (ms): 0
Slave Interface: eth0
MII Status: up
Speed: 1000 Mbps
Duplex: full
Link Failure Count: 0
Permanent HW addr: 08:00:27:6b:06:7e
Slave queue ID: 0
Slave Interface: eth1
MII Status: up
Speed: 1000 Mbps
Duplex: full
Link Failure Count: 0
Permanent HW addr: 08:00:27:57:b2:a9
5. Test bonding
You can test the network bonding by dropping active network card (ifdown eth0) and check that the network connection is still working…
