Daz’s bits and bobs

Otherwise known as trunking or link aggregation. I believe it is the best way to get that additional boost out of your network server while providing a bit of redundancy on link failure. here is how to do it…

Official docs on the process here… http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-6990/gdysn?a=view and some good bits here http://blogs.sun.com/nickyv/entry/link_aggregation_jumpstart_post_install

dladm (data link admin) is the tool for the job. List the links you currently have…

dladm show-link

First shut down the links you are currently using..  (you will have to do this on the console)

ifconfig e1000g1 unplumb

Now join the two nics into one aggregate connection via….

dladm create-aggr -l e1000g1 -l rge0 aggr1

then bring up the new aggregate link

ifconfig aggr1 plumb IP-address up

Show link

dladm show-aggr

(Optional) Make the IP configuration of the link aggregation persist across reboots.

1. Create the /etc/hostname file for the aggregation’s interface.

   If the aggregation contains IPv4 addresses, the corresponding hostname file is/etc/hostname.aggr1. For IPv6–based link aggregations, the corresponding hostname file is/etc/hostname6.aggr1.

2. Type the IPv4 or IPv6 address of the link aggregation into the file.

3. Perform a reconfiguration boot.

I have teamed an intel nic (e1000g) and a (rge) together without any issues…  the rge drive by itself had issues, but i have not come across them again since i trunked both interfaces together. Perhaps the e1000g takes the load while the other nic dies off..

Updated : 4/08/2009

To test the throughput / load balancing run these commands (in two terminal sesssions);

dladm show-link -s -i 5 rge0

dladm show-link -s -i 5 e1000g1

It will return the packets going over each nic. Copy some files back and forth over the interface and watch the numbers. RBYTES and OBYTES are the fields to watch (received and out bytes)

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