Multiple NIC's on NW5.1 Server 1

[nwoliver]

I am installing a new NW5.1 server and have 3 NIC's in this new box. If this was Linux, it would be a no brainer, but I checked the archives of this forum and it seems that NW5.1 cannot bind more than one NIC in the same subnet. Have things changed over the last couple of years with the updated Support Packs and TCPIP that will allow me to do this?
nwo

 

[ITsmyfault]

that's not exactly true. You can set the NIC's up for teaming, AFT, ALB etc. Those drivers come from the NIC mfrs. Intel uses the iANS driver, HP/CPQ has their own. You can bind any IP(s) you want on the fly to the virtual interface. The command (if you do this at the console (on the fly) or in the Autoexec.ncf)

add secondary ipaddress 192.168.100.1

you can add lots of these.. I use these for different web services servers.
Maybe you cannot give each nic a different IP on the same subnet (never tried it), and I'm not sure why you would need to?? If you need load balancing, use a teaming driver from the nic's mfr.

 

[nwoliver]

Thanks.

I'm in the very early stages of loading this thing and it has been a couple of years since I have loaded a NW server. Let me see what rises to the surface and tries to give me a hard time.
nwo

 

[marvhuffaker]

It's not that it can't do it, you just have to know how. You will get errors when trying to do a traditional bind within the same subnet.. The trick is, as Itsmyfault said, is to use the add secondary IPADDRESS command..

It's kind of clunky on NetWare 5.1 because you can't manage it within INETCFG.. They've made it much easier in NetWare 6.5.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[TheLad]

In some of our servers, we run 4 NICs (well actually they are 2 x dual NICs...) to increase bandwidth (no Gigabit currently) and we bind them all to the one IP Address and run in FEC mode so the cards act as one. With two core network switches (same subnet), two are conncted to one and two are connected to the other.

This is done using the CPQANS.LAN driver (Compaq/HP servers) and is configured using a mixture of INETCFG to configure the network card settings and two lines in the AUTOEXEC.NCF to load CPQANS and BIND IP to CPQANS

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[nwoliver]

Thanks. I found out yesterday that I need the NW51 SP8 overlay in order to load my new server (I told you it has been a while), so I am going to work on it again today. The two NICS to one address intrigues me, as all I am after is bandwidth also.
nwo

 

[TheLad]

The link below should give you an insight into what needs to be done to configure your server accordingly. It is not exactly how the servers at my work are configured, but it will hopefully give you a good insight.

http://support.novell.com/techcenter/articles/ana20021003.html

A couple of notes:

1. When building the server, I would not try to configure teaming at the same time. Configure Adapter Teaming when the server is built and working ok. This will mean that if you get issues with the teaming config, you don't get them during the server build.

2. Your network switch ports will also have to be configured accordingly. In my example, I have 2 ports per switch. Each team of two ports is configured as an FEC (Fast EtherChannel) configuration on each switch. Refering to point 1 above, the server will have to be on a normal port during the server build and initial configuration

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"It's true, its damn true!"
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[nwoliver]

Weeeellllll, I guess that I won't do that after all. My switching technology here is pretty infantile. I will use the server in a more traditional fashion for now and when I can do my infrastructure upgrade (my switch and hubs date from 1996), then I will be able to take advantage of the teaming.

It appears that the overlay cd is working fine, I am at the point where I am configuring my storage partitions. NSS here I come.

Onward ho!!
nwo

 

[TheLad]

If you are going to upgrade your infrastructure, then consider putting Gigabit connections to the server(s). This would mean that you could get rid of 4 x 100Mb network connections (for example) and "upgrade" to 1 x 1Gb network connection. This would increase the bandwidth further....

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"It's true, its damn true!"
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[nwoliver]

That's the plan. A GB blade switch for the servers (and certain "special" users ) and 100mb blades for the standard user population.