Multipathing Daemon, in.mpathd

The in.mpathd daemon detects interface failures, and then implements various procedures for failover and failback. After in.mpathd detects a failure or a repair, the daemon sends an ioctl to perform the failover or failback. The ip kernel module, which implements the ioctl, does the network access failover transparently and automatically.

Do not use Alternate Pathing while using IPMP on the same set of network interface cards. Likewise, you should not use IPMP while you are using Alternate Pathing. You can use Alternate Pathing and IPMP at the same time on different sets of interfaces. For more information about Alternate Pathing, refer to the Sun Enterprise Server Alternate Pathing 2.3.1 User Guide.

The in.mpathd daemon detects failures and repairs by sending out probes on all the interfaces that are part of an IPMP group. The in.mpathd daemon also detects failures and repairs by monitoring the RUNNING flag on each interface in the group. Refer to the in.mpathd(1M) man page for more information.

DHCP is not supported to manage IPMP data addresses. If you attempt to use DHCP on these addresses, DHCP eventually abandons control of these addresses. Do not use DHCP on data addresses.