problems with channel bonding

[Per Christian Henden]

Hi,

I'm having some problems with channel bonding.

Setup:
Two otherwise-working PCs with identical kernels (Linux 2.4.4)
Both have three nics. eth0 is used to access the Internet on both
computers, while eth1 and eth2 (realtek 8139-c, all four of them) is
connected with two crossed TP-s to the other node. I'm trying to bond
the connection between the computers.

I'm using the driver 8139too v.0.9.13 for my realtek nics because the one
included in 2.4.4 (..17) doesn't work properly (for me at least).

Kernel support for bonding is enabled, and I'm using ifenslave from
http://pdsf.nersc.gov/linux/ifenslave.c
Is this right version to use?

On each computer I execute:

ifconfig bond0 172.16.0.x netmask 255.255.255.0 up
ifenslave bond0 eth1
ifenslave bond0 eth2

without any errors. (x is either "1" or "2")

In /etc/modules.conf I have "alias bond0 bonding" on both computers.

The nodes can ping each other, but  almost all packages are lost.
They are not counted as lost by the kernel. ifconfig shows

RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:nnnn errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

for devices eth1,2 and bond0

The reason I say that packages are lost is because only a small number of
pings is followed by a ping reply.

route-n on each node returns
172.16.0.0      0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 bond0
172.16.0.0      0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
172.16.0.0      0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth2
aaa.bbb.ccc.0   0.0.0.0         255.255.254.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
0.0.0.0         aaa.bbb.ccc.1   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0

where aaa.bbb.ccc.1 is my gateway to the Internet.

/var/log/debug contains these errors on both nodes:

eth1: Abnormal interrupt, status 00002020.
eth2: Abnormal interrupt, status 00002020.

The connection between the machines when not using bonding works fine.



Ideas, anyone?



Cheers,

Per Christian Henden, pchenden at nlc.no