Does ethernet bonding work and which kernel is required?

[Robin Mordasiewicz]

On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Thomas H Dr Pierce wrote:

> I have a PE2850 with dual Intel 1 Gbit ethernet interfaces which talk to
> the user network  and a PCI (32 bit) Intel Dual  1 Gbit  ethernet
> interfaces which talk to the private cluster network.  My question is
> "Should I "bond" the dual PCI interfaces into a virtual ethernet interface
> to improve thruput  and latency?"
>
> I am not sure this can even work. I have Linux 2.4.21-4.ELsmp RedHat
> Enterprise Release 3 running on the Poweredge.  I have heard references to
> bonding being incorporated into a specific kernel as succeeding
> generations in 2004.  Is RedHat Rel 3 new enough?  Also this link says
> that bonding is not very effective (
> http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/61/32/ ) . And I have not found
> any statistics or metrics on how much better is can be.
>
> To dispel a related issue, yes the 3Com 1 Gbit switch that I use, can
> support bonded ethernet, but does it improve the network?

I will vouch for bonding in both a switch failover mode as well as link 
aggregation mode