Configure Network Bonding Properties

Network bonding is the method of joining multiple interfaces together on a host system to create a bonded interface. A bonded interface can improve network throughput, and also provide a redundancy plan in the event of a failed interface. The behavior of a bonded interface is determined by the bonding mode. For example, different modes implement different levels of bonding for features like load balancing, fault tolerance, and failsafe.

Cockpit administrators can easily create, change, or delete a bonded interface by using the bonding configuration properties available on the Networking page.

What Do You Need?

• The Cockpit web console must be installed and accessible.

  For details, see these topics: Install and Enable Cockpit and Log in to the Cockpit Web Console.

• Two or more physical or virtual network devices are installed on the host system.
• The cockpit-networkmanager package is installed. Typically, this package is installed by default. For package installation details, see Install and Manage Add-on Applications.
• Administrator privileges.

Steps

Using the Cockpit web console, follow these steps to create, change, or remove a bonded interface on the host system.

1. In the Networking page, navigate to the Interface panel and perform any of the following:
   • Create a bonded interface configuration.
     1. Click Add bond.

        The Bond Settings dialog appears.

     2. In the Bond Settings dialog, specify the following properties and then click Save.

     Property	Description
     Name	Use the default name (for example, Bond0) or type in a user-specified bond name such as bond0 (round robin).
     Interfaces	Select the interfaces you want bond from the available interface list.
     MAC	In the drop-down list menu, select the MAC address for the bonded interfaces, or type a user-specified MAC address.
     Mode	In the drop-down list menu, select one of the following bonding modes for the selected bonded interfaces. Active Backup: A single interface is configured as the primary interface and other interfaces in the bond act as backups if the primary interface fails. Round Robin: Network traffic is balanced by transmitting in sequential order beginning with the first available interface. If an interface fails, it's skipped in the round-robin selection. XOR: Network traffic is balanced based on a hash policy derived from interface MAC addresses. This mode ensures that network traffic destined for specific peers always comes from the same physical interface. Broadcast: All network traffic is sent on all network interfaces. This option includes fault tolerance, but it doesn't include load balancing. 802.3ad: Uses the IEEE 802.3ad dynamic link aggregation policy and requires an 802.3ad capable switch. Traffic is broadcast in aggregation groups to maximize fault tolerance and to provide load balancing functionality. Adaptive transmit load balancing: Outgoing traffic is balanced across interfaces within the bond based on each interface's current load. Incoming traffic is delivered to the current active interface. Adaptive load balancing: This option is similar to dynamic link aggregation, but it requires the use an 802.3ad capable switch. Outgoing traffic is handled in the same manner as adaptive transmit load balancing. Incoming traffic is balanced based on ARP negotiation.
     Primary	The Primary property only appears when the Mode is set to Active Backup. In the drop-down menu, select the primary active interface device.
     Link Monitoring	In the drop-down list box, select the applicable link monitoring option. For example: MII (Recommended): This default option uses the MII (Media Independent Interface) monitor, which detects carrier signal for each interface using the local device driver or MII registers to determine carrier state. You can set the Monitoring Interval, which determines how often the carrier state is checked in milliseconds; the Link up delay to determine how long to wait, in milliseconds, until using an interface that's up; and the Link down delay which determines how long to wait before switching to another interface if the interface is marked as down. ARP: The ARP monitor sends ARP queries to peer systems on the network and uses the response to indicate whether an interface is up. The ARP monitor relies on the device driver to track the last transmission and receipt times. If the information isn't updated by the device driver, the interface is marked as down.
     Monitoring Level; Link Up; and Link Down	Edit these properties as required. Typically, the default values for these properties are only changed for troubleshooting purposes.

     The name of the newly bonded interface appears in the Interface panel of the Networking page.

   • Edit, disable, or remove existing bonded interface properties.
     1. In the Interface panel, click the name of the bonded interface that you want edit.

        The Networking > [bond name] page appears.

     2. In the Networking > [bond name] page, edit the configurable bonding properties as needed. For example:

        Toggle the connection state of a bonded interface.	Turn off the toggle switch to deactivate the bonded link state or turn on the toggle switch to activate the bonded link state.
        Delete a bonded configuration	Click Delete (next to the bonded interface name) to remove the bonded interface configuration.
        Toggle the connection state of an interface	Turn off the toggle switch to deactivate an interface that is part of a bonded interface. Turn on the toggle switch to activate the interface that's part of a bonded interface.
        Automatically connect a bonded interface (after reboot)	Select the check box to enable automatic connection after reboot, or clear the check box to disable automatic connection after reboot.
        Change MAC, IPv4, IPv6 addresses or the MTU size	In the Interface table, turn off the toggle switch to deactivate the interface state, or turn on the toggle switch to activate the interface state.
        Bond: Modename	Click the link to edit any of the applicable properties appearing on the Bond Settings dialog. For example, mode option, interface assignment, and so on.
        Edit interface-specific properties	In the Interface table, click the name of one of interfaces that's part of the bonded interface, and then as needed, edit any of properties appearing on the Bond Settings dialog.