Debian server 8 nic bonding help
 

good evening

im still pretty new to the linux world and i have setup a debian 8 server in my home.
i have a cisco switch setup with 6 ports with LACP.
i have set up NIC bonding on the debian server using mode 4 to coincide with my cisco switch and for some weird reason when i perform this command

cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0

output

Bonding mode: Load Balancing (round-robin)
MII Status: up MII Polling Interval (ms):100

i know i set this up as mode 4 for lacp

just wondering if anyone else has come across this issue and how they resolved it as im not sure whether it actually using mode 4 or round robin

cheers

mati

What does your bond interface config look like? Do you have "BONDING_OPTS=" set?

my /etc/network/interfaces looks like this:

# This file describes the network interfaces available pn you system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces (5).

source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# eth0 is manually configured, and slave to the "bond0" bonded nic
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet manual
bond-master bond0
bond #-primary = eth0

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

auto eth2
iface eth2 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

auto eth3
iface eth3 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

auto eth4
iface eth4 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

auto eth5
iface eth5 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

#The bonded inteface
auto bond 0
iface bond 0 inet static
address 192.168.0.25
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1
dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8
bond-mode 4
bond-primary eth0
bond- miimon 100
bond-slaves none

my /etc/network/interfaces looks like this:

# This file describes the network interfaces available pn you system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces (5).

source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# eth0 is manually configured, and slave to the "bond0" bonded nic
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet manual
bond-master bond0
bond-primary = eth0

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

auto eth2
iface eth2 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

auto eth3
iface eth3 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

auto eth4
iface eth4 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

auto eth5
iface eth5 inet manual
bond-master bond 0

#The bonded inteface
auto bond 0
iface bond 0 inet static
address 192.168.0.25
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1
dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8
bond-mode 4
bond-primary eth0
bond-miimon 100
bond-slaves none

also seems to be a bit slow for some reason i am connected to the server via ssh and its lagging when copying large dumps of data over to the server

Change your setup from "bond 0" to "bond0"

Shouldn't bond-slave read as follows:
Not sure if you are aware of the fact that any conversation will only use one (1) interface for communications. Doesn't matter how many interfaces you bond together.

thanks Robert i have made the changes that you have suggested. as for being aware of the information being sent and received from one card i didn't know that.

Not sure the above changes fixed OP's issue but just to add more info: "bond-slaves none" is fine because he has "bond-master bond 0" (which should be "bond-master bond0") under the slave interface definitions. I find the configuration more flexible when done like that.

On Debian (and debian based distros), for LACP, /proc/net/bonding/bond0 should display:
For reference and if it may help, I generally setup lacp as follows:

/etc/network/interfaces
You can also set the bonding options like:

/etc/modprobe.d/bonding.conf
On the switch end and for cisco switches in particular for LACP your "channel-group" config line under all your member interfaces should end in "mode active".

Thnx for your feed back dgorack. There are many ways to do things in Linux and I don't mind learning a new way at all.

This is so weird i have made the changes that you suggested and at the present moment i am copying stuff over to the linux server.
i have logged into my cisco switch to check my configuration to make sure that my channel-group is set to active and it is. so i then did a show ip int br and it says that it is down but i have lights on flashing to indicate that it is communicating and my files are on the server. so strange
mati

Provide us a little more info and maybe we can help. Let's make sure LACP is properly configured. I assume you're restarting your networking/interfaces after you've made config changes.

On your server

Post your updated configuration (/etc/network/interfaces and anywhere else you set your network/lacp options)

Post the new output of /proc/net/bonding/bond0


On your switch

Post the your relevant interface and channel-group config or if you can link to a pastebin of your sanitized "sh run"

Post the output of "sh lacp neighbor" and "sh lacp internal"

Post the output of "sh int port-channel n" where n is your port-channel number

please see the images attached i grabbed as much information as i could.

It would really be helpful if you'd post the output instead of attaching screen grabs. I think it's just good etiquette and it also my life easier in trying to help you (copy/paste).

Your output of /proc/net/bonding/bond0 shows link failures which is probably why it's falling back to round-robin. Like @lazydog said, there are a number of way to do this but I can show you the way I use. Your switch output also shows the each port in your channel-group in state "indep" which mean it failed to bond lacp.

First of all let's clean up your /etc/network/interfaces file.

Check for typos as I'm typing this manually, you know, because you weren't bothered to copy/paste here.
Also make sure the bonding module is loaded
I can't help you with your switch because you didn't post your running-config, post that in a pastebin or in code blocks, no screen grabs please.

Sorry i wasnt sure how to copy from putty. I hand typed the previous post i thought it would of been easier. Sorry again i shall copy and paste everything in now.

Just had a look at this as i noticed this on startup