[plug] plug Digest, Vol 126, Issue 9

[Craig Foster]

>From: plug [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On Behalf Of Paul Del
>Sent: Sunday, 16 November 2014 10:56 PM
>To: PLUG mailing list
>Subject: Re: [plug] plug Digest, Vol 126, Issue 9

<snip>
>So its a dual gige intel eepro 1000 mt pci-e card
>Basically I just want greater network throughput on my lan
<snip>

Per machine, you're still limited to 1Gb/s. LAG, ALB, LACP all pick one NIC to talk to a device at a time, and alter that on availability or load.
There is a chance the port selection in LAG could put both the client-server and server-storage traffic on the same NIC, effectively halving throughput.
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=2490

If you have only one machine that requires full speed access to the ReadyNAS Pro's, you could set up a separate subnet for data traffic only.
Basically dedicate a NIC on each NAS and the Linux box to say 172.16 addresses (if you're not using that already) and then use the storage address to cifs/nfs mount the NAS in Linux.

>I did not set any LACP options on the NIC or switch. I did try LAG on the switch (tp link's port bonding)
>I did not set switch link protocol agg either
>(Firstly I was trying basic set up with balance-rr and active-backup to see if I could get bond0 to work before doing switch configuration)
<snip>
>Am I right in assuming I only need to configure the switch with those above settings If I am only using 802.3ad?
>or are you saying regardless I should set LACP agg LAG and those other settings in the switch?

When hooking up LAG, I would specify LACP settings on each device so each device knows what it should be listening for. LACP generally isn't passively set across all ports on a switch. Much as you specified which interfaces are LAG members in Linux, the switch needs to know which port members should be aggregated.

Also, I'd settle on 802.3ad LACP on every device where possible. Asking about LAG in a networking forum will generally result in a flurry of "what type?" and "on whose equipment?"
I know RAIDiator 4.1x on the Pro does 802.3ad LACP, you say your switch does it, why not follow through and specify LACP on your Linux box?

>Many thanks
>Paul
 
Regards,

Craig Foster