Detaching Network Adaptors

Dynamic Reconfiguration (DR) uses IP Network Multipathing to decommission a specific network device without impacting existing IP users. Before a NIC is DR-detached (offlined), all failover IP addresses hosted on that NIC are automatically failed over to another NIC in the same IP Network Multipathing group. The test addresses are brought down and the NIC unplumbed. However, this kind of system configuration changes are not reflected in the /etc/hostname.* files, or any where else. As a result, IP addresses hosted on a removed NIC will be permanently lost across system reboots. For example, hme0 is DR-detached and removed from the system. If the system reboots with hme0 removed, boot scripts will detect the existence of the /etc/hostname.hme0 file and attempt to plumb hme0. The plumbing will fail, and the IP addresses hosted on the missing NIC are lost.

To retain these IP addresses across reboots, you must modify the appropriate /etc/hostname.* file. For example, you need to move the addif lines from the /etc/hostname.hme0 file to the /etc/hostname.hme1 file, assuming that hme0 and hme1 are in the same IP Network Multipathing group. When the missing NIC is replaced, you might need to move the IP addresses back manually. See Using the hostname File to Configure Groups and Test Addresses and Step 4 for examples on how to modify the /etc/hostname.* file.

NIC attaches and re-attaches require manual intervention.