Gigabit ethernet question

Khannie

Let's say I have a 4 port gigabit NIC and I want to fully utilise it. Is there some way (under Linux) to achieve a single external IP for those 4 ports, giving you 4x the effective bandwidth?

Blazer

I know on the high end Nvidia/Intel X48 boards you can switch on "Nic Teaming" to enable both Nics to be seen as one effectively doubling your bandwidth.
I'm presuming that since this is the case for the high ends there should be no reason not to be able to do this on servers altough I think the limitation is that they had to be either all onboard or all on the same card as they have to be managed by the same driver.
In 100's of servers I've looked at though I've never seen this done (all w2k/w2k3 servers).

Blazer

google is your friend :d
once you know the term "nic teaming" it's a piece of cake..


http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-bond-or-team-multiple-network-interfaces-nic-into-single-interface.html

Khannie

Nice one, cheers.