[Beowulf] PXE Booting and Interface Bonding

[David B. Ritch]

What is the best practice for the use of multiple NICs on cluster nodes?

I've found that when I enable Etherchannel bonding in out network
equipment, PXE booting does not work.  It breaks the initial DHCP
discover request, presumably because the response may not return to the
same NIC.  However, bonding the interfaces is a clear win for node
availability and for performance.

The best solution that I have is to turn off port channels in our
network equipment, and use Linux kernel bonding, in balance-alb mode. 
This provides adaptive load balancing by ARP manipulation.

Thanks in advance!

David