Greetings:

I'm just getting started with Gentoo and I am not as familiar with Gentoo's networking configuration. I have compiled bonding into my kernel as a module and have added the net-misc/ifenslave package to the system.

I located a primer on snipes.org that laid out the basics, which seem to get it up and running just fine.

<SNIP>
1. Compile your kernel with bonding modules under Networking support
2. Obtain and compile ifenslave, it's located in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/network, just followed the how-to:
3. Add "bonding" to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.X (change X to your kernel version)
4. Add "alias bond0 bonding" to /etc/modprobe.conf
5. Edit /etc/conf.d/net and comment all the lines with iface_ethX that you want to bond AND
6. Add the line iface_bond0="192.168.0.2 broadcast 192.168.0.255 netmask 255.255.255.0".
7. Copy or link /etc/init/dev/net.eth0 (it's the default for gentoo to exist) to /etc/init.d/net/bond0
8. Remove all the cards you want to bond from boot:
rc-update -d net.eth0 default
rc-update -d net.eth1 default
etc....
9. Add bond0 to init:
rc-update -a net.bond0 default
10. Add the following lines to /etc/conf.d/local.start file:
/sbin/ifenslave bond0 eth0
/sbin/ifenslave bond0 eth1
etc....
</SNIP>

Also, I updated /etc/modules.d/bond to include the following options and then ran modules-update:

miimon=100
updelay=100
downdelay=100
arp_interval=200
arp_ip_target={IP ADDRESS OF GATEWAY}
primary=eth0

Even though bonding comes up on the primary interface (eth0) and shows the secondary (eth1) configured as a secondary slave, I can't get it to roll over to the secondary interface either automatically (pulling the plug out of eth0, shutting down eth0, etc) or maunually using ifenslave:

#ifenslave -v --change-active bond0 eth1
ifenslave.c:v1.1.0 (December 1, 2003)
o Donald Becker (becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov).
o Detach support added on 2000/10/02 by Willy Tarreau (willy at meta-x.org).
o 2.4 kernel support added on 2001/02/16 by Chad N. Tindel
(ctindel at ieee dot org).
ABI ver is 2
Slave eth1: flags 1803.
Master 'bond0': Error: SIOCBONDCHANGEACTIVE failed: Invalid argument
Master 'bond0', Slave 'eth1': Error: Change active failed

If I simply pull the plug on eth0 while pinging the gateway, the ping will pause and then resume when the connection is re-established. Pre-bonding, the connection was simply dropped, so I guess this is somewhat of an improvement...

Ideas?