binding a single IP address to multiple NICs

I was just asked by an associate if it is possible to do this with a
Linux machine. He says you can do it with Novell by setting up teams.
This is commonly used in Novell for load balancing.
I am wondering if you can have 2-3 NICs on a single box that sit in
the same subnet all answer for a single IP address?
If anyone knows the answer, please let me know. I am basically just
curious to see if Linux can match Novell in this respect.
Thanks.
KJ

Kerry Cox <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I was just asked by an associate if it is possible to do this with a
> Linux machine. He says you can do it with Novell by setting up teams.
> This is commonly used in Novell for load balancing.
> I am wondering if you can have 2-3 NICs on a single box that sit in
> the same subnet all answer for a single IP address?

Sure you can. What's the problem? Just give them all the same IP
address. But what do you expect to happen? There's no point in doing
just this - everyone else on the subnet will complain.

I think you are trying to pronounce the word "ethernet bonding" and
failing miserably.

> If anyone knows the answer,

Everyone knows the answer.

> please let me know. I am basically just
> curious to see if Linux can match Novell in this respect.

Then be curious enough to try it.

Peter

P.T. Breuer <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Kerry Cox <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> > I was just asked by an associate if it is possible to do this with a
> > Linux machine. He says you can do it with Novell by setting up teams.
> > This is commonly used in Novell for load balancing.
> > I am wondering if you can have 2-3 NICs on a single box that sit in
> > the same subnet all answer for a single IP address?

> Sure you can. What's the problem? Just give them all the same IP
> address. But what do you expect to happen? There's no point in doing
> just this - everyone else on the subnet will complain.

Depending on your network equipment, you have to tell it about
bonding, the bonding driver sets the same MAC on every device
belonging to bond(n) device. One can make some cisco catalyst
quite nervous, if it doesn't know, as it doesn't expect the same
MAC on different ports.

> I think you are trying to pronounce the word "ethernet bonding" and
> failing miserably.

Yep!

> > If anyone knows the answer,

> Everyone knows the answer.

The answer is, to read (needs kernel source installed):

/usr/src/linux*/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt

> > please let me know. I am basically just
> > curious to see if Linux can match Novell in this respect.

> Then be curious enough to try it.

There are other *nix with some kind of bonding feature but none
of them can do as much as the Linux driver.

--
Michael Heiming

Remove +SIGNS and www. if you expect an answer, sorry for
inconvenience, but I get tons of SPAM