What special considerations should I be aware of when using the ethernet bonding driver with a Blade Center server ?

Solution Unverified - Updated -

Issue

When using a bladecenter, setting up network interface bonding may require to monitor link with arp instead of mii monitor.

This is mandatory if the switch the nic are plugged into is a switch module and not a passthrough module.

Quoting the kernel documentation's bonding.txt file:

Link monitoring issues


When an Ethernet Switch Module is in place, only the ARP monitor will reliably detect link loss to an external switch.
This is nothing unusual, but examination of the BladeCenter cabinet would suggest that the "external" network ports are the ethernet ports for the system, when it fact there is a switch between these "external" ports and the devices on the JS20 system itself. The MII monitor is only able to detect link failures between the ESM and the JS20 system.

When a passthrough module is in place, the MII monitor does detect failures to the "external" port, which is then directly connected to the JS20 system.

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