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authorJay Vosburgh <fubar@us.ibm.com>2007-10-09 19:57:24 -0700
committerJeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>2007-10-15 14:20:46 -0400
commitdd957c57c52a3964b8446a3e868a08186274b628 (patch)
treee745b1d3cfe5fbcb4bc6b85084dd90a22e1a1da9 /Documentation/networking
parentd90a162a4ee280201e84944a84f86d6728dc0c27 (diff)
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net/bonding: Optionally allow ethernet slaves to keep own MAC
Update the "don't change MAC of slaves" functionality added in previous changes to be a generic option, rather than something tied to IB devices, as it's occasionally useful for regular ethernet devices as well. Adds "fail_over_mac" option (which is automatically enabled for IB slaves), applicable only to active-backup mode. Includes documentation update. Updates bonding driver version to 3.2.0. Signed-off-by: Jay Vosburgh <fubar@us.ibm.com> Signed-off-by: Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/networking')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/networking/bonding.txt33
1 files changed, 33 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt b/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt
index 1da566630831..11340625e363 100644
--- a/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt
+++ b/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt
@@ -281,6 +281,39 @@ downdelay
will be rounded down to the nearest multiple. The default
value is 0.
+fail_over_mac
+
+ Specifies whether active-backup mode should set all slaves to
+ the same MAC address (the traditional behavior), or, when
+ enabled, change the bond's MAC address when changing the
+ active interface (i.e., fail over the MAC address itself).
+
+ Fail over MAC is useful for devices that cannot ever alter
+ their MAC address, or for devices that refuse incoming
+ broadcasts with their own source MAC (which interferes with
+ the ARP monitor).
+
+ The down side of fail over MAC is that every device on the
+ network must be updated via gratuitous ARP, vs. just updating
+ a switch or set of switches (which often takes place for any
+ traffic, not just ARP traffic, if the switch snoops incoming
+ traffic to update its tables) for the traditional method. If
+ the gratuitous ARP is lost, communication may be disrupted.
+
+ When fail over MAC is used in conjuction with the mii monitor,
+ devices which assert link up prior to being able to actually
+ transmit and receive are particularly susecptible to loss of
+ the gratuitous ARP, and an appropriate updelay setting may be
+ required.
+
+ A value of 0 disables fail over MAC, and is the default. A
+ value of 1 enables fail over MAC. This option is enabled
+ automatically if the first slave added cannot change its MAC
+ address. This option may be modified via sysfs only when no
+ slaves are present in the bond.
+
+ This option was added in bonding version 3.2.0.
+
lacp_rate
Option specifying the rate in which we'll ask our link partner