hey i have a lan file server, and i have 2 nics on it, how can i make it load balance? Thanks

What type of load balancing are you talking about? Do you want to combine the two NICs into one logial network connection? If this is the case then it needs to be supported by the switch that the server is connected to.

cheers

Jamie...

well the load balancing that would actually give me a performance gain....and yes it would mean i would combine the 2 interfaces...and yes its supported by the switch...so how would i do that?

The following might be useful, its not something I've ever done myself...

For info on the "bonding" driver you'll want to read bonding.txt which is probably in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking on your linux box. For info on using the NICs as seperate pipes have a read of
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Adv-Routin...loadshare.html

The bonding method looks pretty straight forward on the linux side, dunno how technical the Cisco/3Com switch end of the method is. Are you really maxing out the pipe to the server though and not getting bottlenecked somewhere else between the client and the server?

cheers

Jamie...

well the concept of load balancing is that if one interface is busy it can use the other that way the number of bottlenecks are reduced....and its not really that hard for a switch or router to suport it...it just takes up 2 ports.....i have a friend running freebsd and 6 nics...its his 6 port switch lol...

wow good info on the link btw

Yeah, the Advanced Routing HOWTO is a nice document, but 'more-thnt-a-little-scary' in places.

Jamie....

hehe