Question

NIC bonding on Linux rhel5 results in heavy packet loss and the failover to eth2 does not work

Asked by: structuredweb

Hello experts,
We have new rhel5 linux machine which is to replace our production machine. we configure the bonding (mode 0 - round robin) on the machine to be the interface while eth0 and eth2 its slaves. after this configuration we encounter heavy packet loss pinging from and to the machine. more then that, when we disconnect the eth0 network connection we lose the communication with the machine. (while disconnecting eth2, when eth0 is connected, does not change anything and we still have the communication to the machine).
We also saw that there is a bug with round robin and bonding with rhel5 (http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-16051) and they recommend to work with active-backup configuration (mode=1), which we tried as well with the same results.
attached are the configuration files we use and the process of configuring the bonding. we will appreciate any help.
Thanks

the cnofiguration flow and the files:
service network stop
ifcfg-bond0 file:
------------------------------
# Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5708 Gigabit Ethernet
DEVICE=bond0
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
NETWORK=10.0.2.0
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
IPADDR=10.0.2.15
BROADCAST=10.0.2.255
GATEWAY=10.0.2.1
USERCTL=no
-----------------------------------
ifcfg-eth0 file:
-----------------------------------
DEVICE=eth0
HWADDR=00:24:E8:50:FA:E0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=none
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
USERCTL=no
 
#ONBOOT=no
#IPADDR=10.0.2.15
#NETMASK=255.255.255.0
#NETWORK=10.0.2.0
#BROADCAST=10.0.2.255
#GATEWAY=10.0.2.1
-----------------------------------
ifcfg-eth2 file:
-----------------------------------
DEVICE=eth2
HWADDR=00:15:17:B0:61:5C
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
USERCTL=no
 
#ONBOOT=no
#IPADDR=10.0.2.15
#NETMASK=255.255.255.0
#NETWORK=10.0.2.0
#BROADCAST=10.0.2.255
#GATEWAY=10.0.2.1
-----------------------------------
 
in /etc/modprobe.conf we added the lines:
alias bond0 bonding mode=1
options bond0 miimon=100
 
------------------------------------
 
we run:
modprobe bonding
modprobe mii
 
service network start
----------------------------
 
ifconfig shows that the bond0 is teh interface and eth0 and eth1 are its slaves.
also ethtool eth0 and eth1 show they are connected in the appropriate speed.

                                  
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Asked On
2009-07-24 at 13:06:20ID24599062
Tags

Linux

,

bond

,

bonding

Topics

Linux Networking

,

Linux Programming

,

Red Hat Linux

Participating Experts
3
Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: mrwortaPosted on 2009-07-26 at 06:53:41ID: 24945780

Your config looks good in general - but what is
about the switch you're using: Did you configure it for 802.3ad?

 

by: mrwortaPosted on 2009-07-26 at 06:54:09ID: 24945783

 

by: structuredwebPosted on 2009-07-27 at 06:10:46ID: 24951113

accorind to this document, we don't have to to anything on the switch:


Switch Configuration
For this section, "switch" refers to whatever system the bonded devices are directly connected to (i.e., where the other end of the cable plugs into). This may be an actual dedicated switch device, or it may be another regular system (e.g., another computer running Linux),

The active-backup, balance-tlb and balance-alb modes do not require any specific configuration of the switch.

 

by: structuredwebPosted on 2009-07-27 at 08:17:59ID: 24952471

to further eliminate the switches as a potential problem, i checked the switches ports while in bonding mode and there is no error reported by either switch. the packets are all recieved and then some get lost in the system

 

by: DataplanPosted on 2009-07-28 at 06:20:00ID: 24960322

please note that you're using mode=1 which represents active-backup mode with the linux bonding module.

The active-backup mode (mode=1) will treat arp lookups in a way that may confuse many switches.
If you have the option, I would recommend that you set up LACP/802.3ad on the switch and use mode=4 as a module parameter instead of mode=1.

Just my two cents.

 

by: structuredwebPosted on 2009-07-29 at 09:03:34ID: 24971596

Dell now tells me there is a bug in RHEL 5.3 with bonding and that only 5.4 will solve; they did try to get me the latest drivers and even firmware but to no avail.

is there anyone out there who successfully uses bonding in RHEL? which version, and which bonding mode? did you verify that the bonding works (disconnect cables, etc.)

i will try some of these ideas, but my switches are production switches so i can't do this any time

 

by: GnsPosted on 2009-08-06 at 11:48:38ID: 25036737

I suspect Dataplan is correct. It would also be more efficient to use.
As with all cannel bonding... the switch isn't so easily removed from the equation:-).

Cheers
-- Glenn (who is mostly making noice of agreement, no attempt to "snatch an answer"!)

 

by: structuredwebPosted on 2009-08-07 at 10:40:47ID: 25045208

everyone,
latest updates.

we got it to work, using the latest driver patches from Dell technical support, and we verified that when disconnecting one cable the other interface picks up, so client software is almost always not aware of it. the configuration file is very much standard, we are using active-standby mode.

HOWEVER, we found out that when we use with the machines for prolonged period the following problems occurr, and they all dissapear once you disable bonding:

- when running a continuous PING from any client, there is some packet loss, we never get 0% lost packets

- when opening SSH sessions from time to time the session gets disconnected, even if you define keep-alive in the SSH client

- when writing/reading  folders which are mounted with NFS (the NFS server is a NetApp device) there is random delay, and the percentage of disconnected SSH sessions is higher.

 

 

by: structuredwebPosted on 2009-08-12 at 07:34:33ID: 25079115

OK, finally solved!

the real issue was that, even as we configured the bonding to use active-standby mode (1), the bonding was still operating in round-robin mode. you see that by typing
cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0 OR cat /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode

to force the bonding to active/standby, shutdown the bonding, then type this:
echo 1 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode
then run the "normal" commands to start bonding. works like a dream!

to verify the bonding mechanism, i constanly monitored the MAC addresses on the switches and verified that at any given moment only one port was broadcasting the MAC address of the bond. when i forced that port to shut down, the port on the other switch started broadcasting the same MAC address.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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