How to set up LACP bonding on Ubuntu 18.04 with Netplan - Snel.com

Support
Networking
How to set up LACP bonding on Ubuntu 18.04 with Netplan

Estimated reading time: 1 min

Introduction

In this article, we’ll look at how to set up LACP bonding on a server running Ubuntu. LACP bonding uses the Link Aggregation Control Protocol to combine two network interfaces into one logical interface. Today, we’ll use it to combine two ethernet interfaces. This is useful to increase the throughput from each ethernet device and to provide for a way to failover if there’s an error with one of the devices.

Prerequisites

The network switch your server is connected to must be set up accordingly in for a successful procedure
You need to have the SSH login details of your server ready

Step 1 – Login using SSH

You must be logged in via SSH as sudo or root user. Please see this article for instructions if you don’t know how to connect.

Step 2 – Install the ifenslave dependency

sudo apt-get install ifenslave

Step 3: Load bonding kernel module

Before you can configure the network cards you need to ensure that the kernel module called bonding is present and loaded.

sudo lsmod | grep bonding

If the module is not loaded. Use the following command to load it

sudo modprobe bonding

To ensure that the bonding module is loaded during boot time change file the following file

sudo nano /etc/modules

Add the following line

bonding

Step 4 – find the active network interface

clear && echo $(ip -o -4 route get 8.8.8.8 | sed -nr 's/.*dev ([^\ ]+).*/\1/p')

Step 5 – Configure the network interface

The output of step 4 is the network interface which is active at the moment. You should use that name for the bond. In our case this is enp2s0 and the second interface enp3s0.

# This file is generated from information provided by
# the datasource.  Changes to it will not persist across an instance.
# To disable cloud-init's network configuration capabilities, write a file
# /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99-disable-network-config.cfg with the following:
# network: {config: disabled}
network:
  version: 2
  ethernets:
    eports:
      match:
        name: enp*
      optional: true
  bonds:
    bond0:
      interfaces: [eports]
      addresses: [78.41.207.45/24]
      gateway4: 78.41.207.1
      nameservers:
        addresses: [89.207.128.252, 89.207.130.252]
      parameters:
        mode: 802.3ad
        lacp-rate: fast
        mii-monitor-interval: 100

Apply the changes

sudo netplan apply

Step 6 – Reboot

reboot

Step 7 – Check bonding interface status

If everything went well, you should have a working bonding interface. You can check this by executing the following command

cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0

Conclusion

Congratulations, you have configured LACP network interface according to IEEE 802.3ad on a Ubuntu server 18.04 with Netplan. If you are interested in other modes which are available check this URL section “Descriptions of bonding modes”.

Was this article helpful?

Like 12 Dislike 16

Views: 98705

Comments

goudeuk says
Wednesday, January 8th, 2020 at 15:43
Hello
Could you please let me know which file do I need to edit in Step 5?
Also where in the file (step5) are the two physical interfaces defined?
Many thanks
Reply
- Ahmet Bas says
  Wednesday, January 8th, 2020 at 16:30
  You should be able to find the Netplan yaml configuration file in this folder "/etc/netplan/". Yes, there are two physical interfaces required for creating a bond.
  Reply
  - Michael Cooper says
    Thursday, August 20th, 2020 at 10:48
    Very nice article I understand the over all concept now just need one thing addressed.
    Where are the nics defined in the netplan config file?
    You have the following:
    ################
    network:
    version: 2
    ethernets:
    eports:
    match:
    name: enp*
    optional: true
    bonds:
    bond0:
    interfaces: [eports]
    addresses: [78.41.207.45/24]
    gateway4: 78.41.207.1
    nameservers:
    addresses: [89.207.128.252, 89.207.130.252]
    parameters:
    mode: 802.3ad
    lacp-rate: fast
    mii-monitor-interval: 100
    ############################
    I am assuming enp2s0 goes under network -> ethernets->eports->name does it actually use a wildcard character?
    Where does enp3s0 get defined in this config?
    I see you have eports defined and referenced but where des the second nic get defined?
    Not trying to be a jerk just need a little clarification, Thanks for all your hard work.
    Reply
    - Ahmet Bas says
      Thursday, August 20th, 2020 at 11:03
      We are using a wilcard:
      >name: enp*
      The ports are defined here:
      >interfaces: [eports]
      Reply
Madan says
Saturday, February 15th, 2020 at 14:46
I tried the above steps however it is not working for me.
When I see the bonding status it is working fine for me(cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0)
However, after reboot it is not working for me and I am unable to connect to the server.
Reply
- Ahmet Bas says
  Saturday, February 15th, 2020 at 22:37
  Is the bonding module loaded after a reboot?
  Reply
Madan says
Sunday, February 16th, 2020 at 14:03
Hi Ahmet,
Thanks for your update.
How can I check/load the bonding module?
Reply
- Ahmet Bas says
  Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 12:00
  You can check it with those commands:
  sudo lsmod | grep 8021q
  Reply
Madan says
Sunday, February 16th, 2020 at 16:12
Hi Ahmed,
Thanks for your response.
Yes, I have loaded the bonding modules after the reboot. However, When I manually unplug the primary ethernet connection(eX:enp0s3) I am unable to connect/ping the server. If I unplug another ethernet connection manually it is working fine for me. Kindly once see the below file and let me know if it requires any modifications.
# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
# eth0 is manually configured, and slave to the "bond0" bonded NIC
auto enp0s3
iface enp0s3 inet manual
bond-master bond0
bond-primary enp0s3
# eth1 ditto, thus creating a 2-link bond.
auto enp0s8
iface enp0s8 inet manual
bond-master bond0
# bond0 is the bonding NIC and can be used like any other normal NIC.
# bond0 is configured using static network information.
auto bond0
iface bond0 inet static
address 192.168.0.7
gateway 192.168.0.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
bond-mode 1
bond-miimon 100
bond-slaves none
# bond-lacp-rate 1
# bond-slaves enp0s3 enp0s8
Reply
- Ahmet Bas says
  Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 11:59
  Is this a configuration with netplay does not seems like a yaml configuration. Did you check our Ubuntu 16.04 knowledge base article https://www.snel.com/support/how-to-setup-lacp-bonding-on-ubuntu-16-04/ ?
  Reply
Madan says
Sunday, February 16th, 2020 at 16:28
Hi Ahmad,
Above configuration, I did in the oracle virtual VM.
kindly let me know, If I restart the server multiple times with bonding changes, will it be an effect on the bonding?
Please correct me if I am wrong, I think due to the network cache I am getting the different results of bonding after every immediate restart.
Reply
Manfred says
Sunday, April 19th, 2020 at 14:27
There is a typo in eports – should be exports.
Thanks for the blog article 🙂
Reply
- Ahmet Bas says
  Sunday, April 19th, 2020 at 15:17
  Do you mean the eports in the netplan configuration?
  Reply
darkfader says
Tuesday, May 5th, 2020 at 16:52
why does one need to reboot?
what is the point of this daemon if we need to reboot to activate or test something that could be configured on the fly more than a decade before the daemon was designed?
Reply
- Ahmet Bas says
  Wednesday, May 6th, 2020 at 10:47
  Rebooting the server is not necessary but in our article, we do this. Just to be sure that everything is working after a reboot.
  Reply
DEEPAK RAJPUT says
Friday, July 3rd, 2020 at 15:10
HOW TO ADD BONDING COMMAND IN KERNEL MODULE
Reply
- Ahmet Bas says
  Friday, July 3rd, 2020 at 15:53
  Did you follow step 2 & 3, that should be enough to load the kernel modules.
  Reply
Syed Tayyab Asghar says
Friday, August 7th, 2020 at 06:19
Hi,
Why partner/actor churn stats showed churned any one can tell me ? due to that port-channel at switch showing down.
Reply
- Yavuz Aydin says
  Friday, August 7th, 2020 at 12:14
  Make sure the switch is configured correctly and that the cabling is correct.
  Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply