HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solutions - Manual (Page 56)

How Active-Passive bonding works
Bonding NICs for Active-Passive allows you to specify a preferred interface that will be used for
data transfer. This is the active interface. The other interface acts as a backup, and its status is
“Passive (Ready).”
Physical and logical interfaces
The two NICs in the storage system are labeled as listed in Table 19 (page 56) . If both interfaces
are bonded for failover, the logical interface is labeled bond0 and acts as the master interface.
As the master interface, bond0 controls and monitors the two slave interfaces which are the physical
interfaces.
Table 19 Bonded network interfaces
Failover description Failover name
Logical interface acting as master bond0
Physical interface acting as slave eth0
Motherboard:Port1
FlexLOM:Port1
NICSlot1:Port1
BladeBoard:Port1
Physical interface acting as slave eth1
Motherboard:Port2
FlexLOM:Port2
NICSlot1:Port2
BladeBoard:Port2
The logical master interface monitors each physical slave interface to determine if its link to the
device to which it is connected, such as a router, switch, or repeater, is up. As long as the interface
link remains up, the interface status is preserved.
Table 20 NIC status in Active-Passive configuration
The NIC is If the NIC status is
Currently enabled and in use Active
Slave to a bond and available for failover Passive (Ready)
Slave to a bond and no longer has a link Passive (Failed)
If the active NIC fails, or if its link is broken due to a cable failure or a failure in a local device to
which the NIC cable is connected, then the status of the NIC becomes Passive (Failed) and the
other NIC in the bond, if it has a status of Passive (Ready), becomes active.
This configuration remains until the failed preferred interface is brought back online. When the
failed interface is brought back online, it becomes Active. The other NIC returns to the Passive
(Ready) state.
Requirements for Active-Passive
To configure Active-Passive:
•
Both NICs should be enabled.
•
NICs should be connected to separate switches.
56 Managing the network