Configure 2 network cards for Active/Standby
 

Hi,
I know from some quick searches through these forums this has been asked before, but none of the answers seem to give an answer to my dilema.

I am quite new to Linux (Coming from a windows background), so bear with me if I ask anything obvious.

I have a server (Dell 1750) with twin broadcom 1Gb NIC's. The OS is RH ES 3.0 with the latest updates.

At present the server is only connected by one of the NIC's to a Foundry EdgeIron (Switch for those who don't know).

"Above" these in our network are redundant Foundry ServerIrons (Load Balancers) (for our webservers).

For redundancy I want to connect the 2nd network card to a 2nd switch, so that if either fails, the other will take over.

Now I have been told not to use the broadcom software as this could cause a spanning tree loop with these particular switches/load balancers.

So, silly question. Anyone have any suggestions how I could set this up ? Ideally I would like both NIC's to have the same IP address.

I hope I've given enough info.

Thanks in advance.

Mike