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Setting up a second Network Interface Card for failover

Note:
This procedure is optional and applies only to the Sun Fire V240 and Sun Fire 280R platforms.

The following procedure describes how to set up a second Network Interface Card (NIC) as a standby or failover interface in case the primary NIC fails.

The following IP addresses and device names are used in this procedure:

Primary NIC (eri0) - 135.9.84.33
Logical address for Primary NIC - 135.9.84.58
Secondary NIC (ce0) - 135.9.84.57

The three IP addresses listed above must belong to the same subnet.

To set up a second NIC for failover:

  1. Install the second NIC in the Sun Fire V240 or Sun Fire 280R platform.
  2. Log in as root.
  3. To add the two NICs to a multipathing group, at the command prompt, enter:

    ifconfig eri0 group test

    ifconfig ce0 group test

  4. To add a logical IP to the primary NIC (used to probe the network for outages), enter:

    ifconfig eri0 addif 135.9.84.58 netmask 255.255.255.0 -failover deprecated up

    You should now see the new logical interface, eri0:1.

  5. To assign the second NIC as the standby interface, enter:

    ifconfig ce0 deprecated -failover standby

The second NIC is now set up to take over if the primary NIC fails. If you run the ifconfig –a command, the system displays a message that looks similar to the following:

lo0: flags=1000849 mtu 8232 index 1 inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000

ce0: flags=69040843 mtu 1500 index 2

inet 135.9.84.57 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 135.9.84.255

groupname test

ether 0:3:ba:31:94:76

eri0: flags=1000843 mtu 1500 index 3

inet 135.9.84.33 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 135.9.84.255

groupname test

ether 0:3:ba:2f:93:8b

eri0:1: flags=9040843 mtu 1500 index 3

inet 135.9.84.58 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 135.9.84.255

If a failure is detected on the primary NIC, you will see the FAILED status for the eri0 and eri0:1 devices and the INACTIVE status will be removed from the ce0 device. If the primary NIC recovers from the failure, the system will automatically revert back to the primary NIC (eri0).

Use the following procedure to preserve these settings after a system reboot:

  1. Add the following lines to the /etc/hostname.eri0 file:

    135.9.84.33 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 135.9.84.255 group test up \

    addif 135.9.84.58 deprecated -failover netmask 255.255.255.0 up

  2. Add the following lines to the /etc/hostname.ce0 file:

    135.9.84.57 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 135.9.84.255 deprecated \

    group test -failover standby up

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