Re: Can't get NIC Bonding with active-backup working

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

On Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:04:04 +0000, Shaun wrote:

> On 30/01/2012 17:22, Camaleón wrote:
>> On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:29:07 +0000, Shaun wrote:
>>>
>>> output from cat /etc/network/interfaces
>> 
>> (...)
>> 
>> I have the same setup as yours in my lenny servers but with a
>> difference: both cards are connected to the same physical switch in the
>> same VLAN. Mmm... have you tried the other way round? Disconnect eth1
>> and see if it works.
> 
> I've tired that by setting the active interface from the command line
> with ifenslave -c.  Didn't make a difference the other way around.
> 
>> Another thing I would test is with no bonding setup at all, configure
>> both ethernet cards separately and try to ping with both of them, i.e.:
> 
> Yes I tried this just to eliminate cable/NIC/switch. They work fine when
> configured independently with different IPs.
> 
> Also when I do arp -a (via remote console access via iDRAC like
> technology) I see the arp table is empty following failover. It has
> entries prior to failover.
> 
> I have to login via the remote-console access and restart networking to
> get it up again.  I can only think it's something to do with the switch
> but not sure how to prove this. I can also get my hosting company to
> connect both NICS to the same switch and I can try testing again? But I
> would lose the switch redundancy this way :(
> 
> Is there anything further I can do to debug or eliminate things? Sadly I
> don't have any access to any of the following or proceeding hops to run
> tcpdump or such stuff.

Before doing more tests I would ask first to the hosting company is this 
option (channel bonding) is currently available, my guess is that they 
can be using "something" (a special hardware configuration or specific 
software/routing setup) that is preventing this from working the way you 
want. Having no control over hardware it's always a problem ;-(

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón