How to use the EtherChannel feature in the AIX operating system

The EtherChannel in the AIX operating system is a network port synthesis technology that allows users to combine multiple Ethernet cards on a single server to form a more bandwidth-wide Ethernet interface. In general, these Ethernet cards should be connected to the same switch that supports EtherChannel technology, and the ports on the switches to which these network adapters are connected must be explicitly manually designated as a EtherChannel member port.

The AIX operating system treats the configured EtherChannel as an Ethernet interface, so users can configure IP addresses on this interface as they would on a normal Ethernet card, and the EtherChannel will be configured as a unified MAC address. So that other systems also consider them to be an Ethernet interface.

The main advantage of EtherChannel technology is that it can accumulate the bandwidth of all the member network cards. Network traffic is assigned to each member's network card in a specific way, either based on the remote system's address or in alternate ways. If a member Nic fails, EtherChannel automatically adjusts the traffic allocation policy to work only with the remaining NIC. After the marketable NIC is repaired, EtherChannel will re-enable it.

In the AIX operating system, users can configure multiple EtherChannel, but generally all member cards of the same EtherChannel need to be connected to the same switch. If this switch fails, the entire EtherChannel will fail. To address this problem, the new NIC fallback mode is introduced in AIX 5.2. The user can specify a backup card for the entire EtherChannel, which is connected to a different switch. When the entire EtherChannel fails, this NIC will automatically replace the EtherChannel function. This is very different from the EtherChannel NIC backup mode prior to Aix 5.2. Prior to Aix 5.2, users could only specify that a NIC connected to a different switch could be used to make up EtherChannel, in which case only a single network card would be able to pay for traffic, if the NIC failed, The system will switch its IP and MAC address to the other NIC in the EtherChannel, so there is only backup function, no bandwidth accumulation effect.

How to configure EtherChannel

Precautions:

A etherchannel can have 2 to 8 block cards;

Multiple EtherChannel can be configured in an AIX operating system, but remember that each etherchannel is a new Ethernet interface. The user may need to adjust the value of the Ifsize parameter through the no command to ensure that the total number of Ethernet cards and EtherChannel does not exceed ifsize. The default value for Ifsize is 8.

You can build EtherChannel using any of the network adapters supported by the AIX system. However, the EtherChannel member network card must be connected to a etherchannel switch.

All EtherChannel member adapters should be set to the same speed and operating mode, such as 100 gigabit Full-duplex.

The network card to be used as a EtherChannel member cannot be configured with an IP address. If you are already configured, you must remove these configurations before you start configuring EtherChannel.

To configure EtherChannel:

1. Log in with Root and run Smit EtherChannel at the command line.

2, choose Add an EtherChannel.

3, select the EtherChannel member network card. If you want to use the EtherChannel fallback mode of Aix 5.2, do not select a backup network card here. Note that all the network adapters available in the system are listed here, please make sure that the NIC you selected is not configured with an IP address. Otherwise there will be an error.

4. Enter the following information in accordance with the following instructions:

EtherChannel adapters: You will see the NIC you selected in the previous step.

Enable alternate EtherChannel address: Optional. Setting this project to Yes allows the user to specify the MAC address that EtherChannel uses. If the value of this item is No,etherchannel will use the MAC address of the first NIC.

Alternate EtherChannel Address: If you have set the Enable alternate EtherChannel adress is yes, where you want to enter the EtherChannel MAC addresses you want to use. The address must be a 12-bit hexadecimal number that starts with a 0x.

Enable Gigabit Ethernet Jumbo Frames: Optional. Using this feature requires the switch to support jumbo Frames. The EtherChannel with this option does not support the 802.3 interface.

Mode: You can select the following modes:

Standard: In this mode EtherChannel uses the IP address of the target host to decide which network card to use to send the data. EtherChannel determines which network card to send data by dividing the end byte of the destination IP by the remainder (modulo) of the number of member cards. For example, the target IP is 10.10.10.1, EtherChannel has two Member network card, (1 2) = 1, so the second network card is used to send data (network card number starting from 0). The network card numbers are arranged in the order they are listed in the Smit interface. For non-IP traffic (such as ARP), the last byte of the destination MAC address is used for calculation. This is the default mode of operation.

Round Robin: In this mode each member of the network card is used in turn, each card sends a packet.

Network Interface Backup: This mode is the NIC fallback mode for AIX 5.1 and Aix 4.3.3. In this mode, EtherChannel will only use a single NIC at any given time to load network traffic. It is mainly used for network adapters to connect to different switches, and the same network can be reached by any switch. When a network adapter-switch connection is detected (through a network cable to detect or select Ping An IP address), EtherChannel will stop the current member network card and start the next member network card. Only this mode will use the Internet address to Ping, number of retries and retry timeout options.

Backup Adapter: Options available. The EtherChannel fallback mode for AIX 5.2. Specify the NIC you want to use to reserve the entire EtherChannel.

Internet address to Ping: only for network card fallback mode. EtherChannel will ping the IP address you specify here. If the response timeout reaches the specified number, EtherChannel will switch the NIC. Number of retries: Time allowed for response timeout, default is 3.

Retry Timeout: The time limit for responding to timeouts. The default is 1 seconds.

5. Use Smit chinet to configure IP addresses for EtherChannel devices (ENTX).