Anybody here ever messed around with the Linux network bonding stuff, particularly in conjunction with a Cisco Catalyst switch and its EtherChannel capabilities? I have the bonding stuff mostly sorta kinda working but the behavior is a little strange in that the throughput numbers exhibit variations that I don't understand. Note that I'm in unfamiliar territory here so if it seems like I don't know what I'm talking about it's only because I don't...
This appears to be a switch issue because if I declare (say) 5 pairs of Catalyst ports to be 5 "channels" and I connect machineA's two NICs to portPairA and machineB's NICs to portPairB (with nothing else connected to the switch) all will be well for a time and I will get the expected aggregate throughput numbers in both directions, as measured from either host by saying "netperf -H otherHost". Then, sometimes, after a while netperf on one host will start reporting lower and lower numbers until we're at (or even below) the numbers obtained for a single un-bonded connection, while the other host seems perfectly happy and continues to obtain the higher aggregate numbers (ie. ~165 Mbits/S versus ~95) Strangely, if I swap the connections (ie. machineA's two NICs into portPairB and machineB's NICs into portPairA) the "slow" machine will be fast and vice versa. Or if I move the "slow" machine's connections to a previously idle channel like portPairC then both machines will once again start reporting the higher numbers. When I ask the Catalyst to tell me everything about the vlans and channels and statistics and every other dang thing I can think of I see nothing that's different or remarkable for one port or channel compared to any other. FYI, I also tried this with an Intel switch (their term is "port aggregation") and the numbers are rock steady at ~95Mbits/S, showing no variations but also no throughput numbers higher than I can get with an unbonded NIC. _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
