It turns out that the bonding driver does indeed handle interface redundancy to two separate switches. Martin was right and the kernel documentation file (networking/bonding.txt) is packed full of useful information. The specific section that deals with what I need is under the heading "High Availability", option 2 "HA on two or more switches (or a single switch without trunking support)". It uses link status to determine that the interface is alive and uses one and only one at a given time. bonding.txt is well worth a good read. -Doug- Jose Luis Domingo Lopez wrote: >On Wednesday, 22 January 2003, at 10:07:32 -0600, >Martin A. Brown wrote: > > > >> : I am interested in setting up a host with dual ethernet connections to >> : the same IP subnet (but different switches) for redundancy. We need >> : reasonably transparent failover if an interface fails. >> >>Linux supports channel bonding which should do what you want. There is >>little documentation outside the kernel for this, but what documentation >>exists is very good. This can be found in a linux source tree in the >>following file: >> >> >> >As far as I know ethernet bonding (trunking) is a layer-2 point-to-point >thing. So you need compatible bonding implementations at both sides, and >every cable in the trunk on each end must go to the same box. > >The original poster said "dual ethernet connections to the same IP >subnet (but different switches)", so I'm afraid bonding is not an option. > >Regards, > > > -- Douglas Kingston Director Global Unix Engineering Manager Deutsche Bank AG London 6 Bishopsgate London EC2N 4DA Work: +44-20-7545-3907 Mobile: +44-7767-616-028
