topic Nic bonding in Netapp in ONTAP Discussions

Nic bonding in Netapp

SagarDH — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 18:28:05 GMT

Hi,

I have two 10G ports and I need to configure as NIC bond like in linux.

Each port is connected to two different switches (Two different hardware vendor).

Both ports has to communicate with single IP and should load balance the traffic like round robin.

OS: ontap 8.1.4 7 mode

Please help for this setup and also let me is any configuration is needed in switching side

Thanks

Re: Nic bonding in Netapp

Naveenpusuluru — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 13:06:45 GMT

You can configure ifgroup on those two ports and you can use both the physical ports with single ip address.

But in this case you ports are connected to different switchs, so you need to configure vPC on switch side.

if switchports are configured in vPC (virtual port channel)

It’s not that simple. Switches must be configured in vPC cluster, you need extra ISL connections as well as additional heartbit one.

I’m not networking specialist so I guess you better discuss it with your network guys. If anything, using vPC mean spending 4 to 6 additional ports only to interconnect switches together.

Re: Nic bonding in Netapp

Sebastian_Goetze — Sat, 29 Oct 2016 09:12:55 GMT

Well........

What you want to do is 802.3ad / 802.1AZ link aggregation...

On the NetApp side it's IFGRPs: ifgrp create [ single | multi | lacp ] ifgrp_name [ -b {rr|mac|ip|port} ] [ interface_list ]

Now, what you want is load-balancing, round-robin: ifgrp create lacp My20gIfGrp -b rr e1a e2a

BUT, the switch(es) have to support that and be configured also!

You didn't mention, which switches you use, but you did mention different HW vendors.

It's tricky enough to do this with a single switch vendor, it's impossible with different switch vendors!

Just to mention:

With Cisco Nexus and a single switch, it would be configuring a "port channel (PC)".

With Cisco Nexus and two compatible (probably same) switches, it would be configuring a "virtual port channel (vPC)".

I could tell you, how to configure a vPC, but since you didn't mention Cisco Nexus, and DID mention 2 different vendors, it would be pointless.

What you CAN do:

No load-balancing, just failover.

ifgrp create single My10gIfGrp e1a e2a

In this case, there's no switch configuration necessary, apart from the usual port speed and stuff.

Sorry to disappoint you, but hope that helps (maybe you find 2 switches from the same vendor...)

Sebastian

Re: Nic bonding in Netapp

SagarDH — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 04:25:56 GMT

Hi Sebastian,

My switches wont support portchannel so now i will opt for failover. I am trying below command and i am getting error.

ifgrp create single grp10g c0a c0b
vif: Error: not allowed for a private interface

Please help

Re: Nic bonding in Netapp

DaemonFF — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 05:25:14 GMT

Please, display output of 'ifconfig -a' command

Re: Nic bonding in Netapp

SagarDH — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 05:36:59 GMT

Hi,

Below is the ifconfig -a

e0a: flags=0x270c866<BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,TCPCKSUM> mtu 1500
ether 00:a0:98:3f:b3:88 (auto-unknown-down) flowcontrol full
e0b: flags=0x2f4c867<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,TCPCKSUM> mtu 1500
inet 10.10.10.100 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.193.180.255
ether 00:a0:98:3f:b3:89 (auto-1000t-fd-up) flowcontrol full
e1a: flags=0x1f0c866<BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,TCPCKSUM,LRO> mtu 1500
ether 90:e2:ba:36:5b:8c (auto-10g_sr-fd-up) flowcontrol full
e1b: flags=0x1f0c866<BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,TCPCKSUM,LRO> mtu 1500
ether 90:e2:ba:36:5b:8d (auto-10g_sr-fd-up) flowcontrol full
c0a: flags=0x174e867<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,TCPCKSUM> mtu 9000 PRIVATE
inet 192.168.1.7 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
ether 00:a0:98:3f:b3:8a (auto-10g_twinax-fd-down) flowcontrol full
c0b: flags=0x174e867<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,TCPCKSUM> mtu 9000 PRIVATE
inet 192.168.2.48 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255
ether 00:a0:98:3f:b3:8b (auto-10g_twinax-fd-down) flowcontrol full
e0M: flags=0x230c866<BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,TCPCKSUM,MGMT_PORT> mtu 1500
ether 00:a0:98:3f:b3:8c (auto-unknown-down) flowcontrol full
e0P: flags=0x2b4c867<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,TCPCKSUM,ACP_PORT> mtu 1500 PRIVATE
inet 192.168.0.108 netmask 0xfffffc00 broadcast 192.168.3.255 noddns
ether 00:a0:98:3f:b3:8d (auto-100tx-fd-up) flowcontrol full
lo: flags=0x1b48049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,TCPCKSUM> mtu 8160
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 broadcast 127.0.0.1
ether 00:00:00:00:00:00 (RNIC Provider)
losk: flags=0x40a400c9<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 9188
inet 127.0.20.1 netmask 0xff000000 broadcast 127.0.20.1

Re: Nic bonding in Netapp

DaemonFF — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 05:54:23 GMT

Your system has used interfaces c0a and c0b for ACP connection. You cannot use with LACP or other port channel capabilities.

Re: Nic bonding in Netapp

aborzenkov — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 05:54:45 GMT

That's correct - c0a and c0b are used for HA Pair interconnect; they cannot be used for anything else.

Re: Nic bonding in Netapp

SagarDH — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 06:53:54 GMT

Thanks a lot for your replies but c0a and c0b is not connected I thought these links are 10G for switching connectivity and any way i have opted another slot for failover.

Re: Nic bonding in Netapp

Sebastian_Goetze — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 07:34:26 GMT

Only ports marked e.., like e0b, e1a (extension card in first slot), and so on can be used for Ethernet connections!

The c.. ports speak iWarp (Infiniband over Ethernet), which you can see when you watch your 3200 system boot (only in your case it seems to use the backplane instead, because you seem to have 2 controllers in 1 chassis)

Hopefully you have other ports you can use... (starting with an "e"!, Not marked "PRIVATE"- like e0P and the c.. ports), like e1a and e1b...

Sebastian