ServerBuddies Support Blog

Channel Bonding Interfaces

Linux allows administrators to bind multiple network interfaces together into a single channel using the bonding kernel module and a special network interface called a channel bonding interface. Channel bonding enables two or more network interfaces to act as one, simultaneously increasing the bandwidth and providing redundancy.

To create a channel bonding interface, create a file in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ directory called ifcfg-bond[N], replacing [N] with the number for the interface, such as 0.

The contents of the file can be identical to whatever type of interface that is getting bonded, such as an Ethernet interface. The only difference is that the DEVICE= directive must be bond[N], replacing [N] with the number for the interface.

The following is a sample channel bonding configuration file:

For example, if channel bonding two Ethernet interfaces, both eth0 and eth1 may look like the following example:

In this example, replace [N] with the numerical value for the interface.