agr(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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AGR(4)                  NetBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual                 AGR(4)


NAME

     agr -- link aggregation pseudo network interface driver


SYNOPSIS

     pseudo-device agr


DESCRIPTION

     The agr driver provides link aggregation functionality (a.k.a. L2 trunk-
     ing or bonding).

     It supports the IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) and
     the Marker Protocol.

     The agr driver supports the following link specific flags for
     ifconfig(8):

     link0   Use the round-robin distribution algorithm.  Don't use it unless
             you're really sure, because it violates the frame ordering rule.

     -link0  Use the default distribution algorithm, which is based on the
             hash of DA/SA, TCI, and, if available, some upper layer protocol
             information like ip(4) DA/SA.


EXAMPLES

     Create an agr interface, agr0, and attach re0 and re1 to it.  (In other
     words, aggregate re0 and re1 so that they can be used as a single inter-
     face, agr0)

                   ifconfig agr0 create
                   ifconfig agr0 agrport re0
                   ifconfig agr0 agrport re1

     Destroy an interface created in the above example.

                   ifconfig agr0 -agrport re0
                   ifconfig agr0 -agrport re1
                   ifconfig agr0 destroy


SEE ALSO

     ifconfig(8)


STANDARDS

     IEEE 802.3ad Aggregation of Multiple Link Segments


HISTORY

     The agr driver first appeared in NetBSD 4.0.


AUTHORS

     The agr driver was written by YAMAMOTO Takashi.


BUGS

     The current implementation of the agr driver always attempts automatic
     configuration via LACP.  There is no way to configure statically or use
     non IEEE 802.3 devices.

     There is no way to configure LACP administrative variables, including
     system and port priorities.  The current implementation of the agr driver
     always performs active-mode LACP and uses 0x8000 as system and port pri-
     orities.

     The agr driver uses the MAC address of the first-added physical interface
     as the MAC address of the agr interface itself.  Thus, removing the phys-
     ical interface and using it for another purpose can result in non-unique
     MAC addresses.

     The current implementation of the agr driver doesn't prevent unsafe oper-
     ations like some ioctls against underlying physical interfaces.  Such
     operations can result in unexpected behaviors, and are strongly discour-
     aged.

     There is no way to configure agr interfaces without attaching physical
     interfaces.

     Physical interfaces being added to the agr interface shouldn't have any
     addresses except for link level address.  Otherwise, the attempt will
     fail with EBUSY.  Note that it includes an automatically assigned IPv6
     link-local address.

NetBSD 5.1.2                   November 5, 2007                   NetBSD 5.1.2