Dual NIC Bind Order

[n13975]

All

I have a NetWare 6 server using a Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Adapater and a Intel Pro/1000 NIC. The Pro 1000 NIC is used to connect to a Live LAN and is currently connected at 100Mb/Full Duplex (hard coded on both the NIC and the switch). The Broadcom NIC is used on a dedicated Backup LAN and is currently connected at Gb. The only way to achieve this is to hard code the Gigabit on the switch and use Auto Detection on the NIC due to the driver not supporting hard coded Gigabit.

This configuration works fine until I have attempted to wind up the speed\duplex to Gigabit on the Live LAN.

Once this happens and the server is rebooted the first NIC to activate binds to SLP. This means if it is the Broadcom NIC the server cannot communicate with the live network as the network is a private backup lan and is designed not to be able to comunicate with the outside world.

The live lan is set within inetcfg to be the primary interface.

Which NIC binds to SLP is random so as a result sometimes the server restarts OK and other times it does not.

I am trying to avoid using autoexec.ncf for binding the NIC's

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[marvhuffaker]

In your SLP settings (MONITOR - SERVER PARAMETERS - SERVICE LOCATION PROTOCOL).. There is an option called SLP AGENT IP ADDRESS. By default it is FIRST to indicate that it should use the FIRST IP Address that binds. However, you can change that to specify the actual IP address that you want to use. This, in theory, should help you work around your problem of never knowing which NIC will bind first.



Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com