Solved: Weird teaming/port bonding question

IgorHamzic · ‎02-27-2007

Hi.I have a weird question regarding teaming.

One of my Windows administrators has asked me to configure the switch a new server will connect to for teaming(2 NIC ports on the server should work together).

The problem is when I studied the existing configuration for an existing server that is working in teaming with his NICs I found that 2 ports on a switch the server is connected to aren't in Etherchannel as I have read it must be done for teaming to work.

In fact one NIC is connected to a 1 Gigabit port and the other to a 100 Mbit port and both ports are in the same VLAN(VLAN all our servers are in).

Is it possible that on the server side NICs are working in a team but on the switch side they are just in the same VLAN?

By the way switch is Cisco Catalyst 6500.

rtanner · ‎02-27-2007

NIC Teaming implementations vary, but in my experience, NIC teaming only requires the NICs to be on the same VLAN, as heartbeats need to be sent between the NICs.

hth,

Ross

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Jon Marshall · ‎02-27-2007

Hi

As mentioned by previous poster there are different ways to run NIC teaming. We run in fault tolerant mode within our company.

The server NIC's are definitely not setup as etherchannel connections. Maybe that is necessary for some configurations altho i haven't come across them. You just connect your two NIC's into the switches and as said before make sure they are on the same vlan.

Obviously if you are teaming for fault tolerance you generally connect the two server NICs to two separate switches.

HTH

Jon

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rtanner · ‎02-28-2007

nothing specific to teaming is required - you will need to make sure that no access-lists are in the way, that Windows firewall on the server allows pings, etc.

regards,

Ross

View solution in original post

rtanner · ‎02-27-2007

NIC Teaming implementations vary, but in my experience, NIC teaming only requires the NICs to be on the same VLAN, as heartbeats need to be sent between the NICs.

hth,

Ross

IgorHamzic · ‎02-27-2007

Thanks.I'll place both server NICs in the same VLAN(one NIC on Gigabit port and the other on a 100 Mbit port) and see if it will work.

Jon Marshall · ‎02-27-2007

Hi

As mentioned by previous poster there are different ways to run NIC teaming. We run in fault tolerant mode within our company.

The server NIC's are definitely not setup as etherchannel connections. Maybe that is necessary for some configurations altho i haven't come across them. You just connect your two NIC's into the switches and as said before make sure they are on the same vlan.

Obviously if you are teaming for fault tolerance you generally connect the two server NICs to two separate switches.

HTH

Jon

IgorHamzic · ‎02-28-2007

Put the 2 NICs on server on the switch in today both on different modules of Catalyst 6500(same VLAN) and on Gigabit ports and it seems to be working OK from the server side(server connected to the domain all right).

But just one question:do I have to configure something on the switch to be able to ping the server as I can't do that at the moment?

rtanner · ‎02-28-2007

nothing specific to teaming is required - you will need to make sure that no access-lists are in the way, that Windows firewall on the server allows pings, etc.

regards,

Ross

IgorHamzic · ‎03-01-2007

Everything works fine now.Server firewall was the problem so when the Windows administrator took care of it pings went through with no problem.

Thanks for all your help guys.