Link Aggregation

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VIBNF

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May 14, 2013
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Hi,

I'm new to FreeNAS and have installed it on an old but good Dell Poweredge 2850 which has two NIC's. Up until recently, this server was running Win2k Server with the two NIC's bonded together as LACP using Broadcom's utility, and then connected to the network through a HP Procurve switch, also setup for LACP aggregation. All this worked fine.

So I have done a fresh install of FreeNAS-8.3.1-RELEASE-p2-x64 and I can't get the aggregation to work. If I set both NIC's up as DHCP then I get 2 IP addresses (as expected), and I can run the system. However, if I try to aggregate them via LACP on the console then I have no way of setting the IP address. i.e., I choose option 2, then create, then LACP, then I choose each NIC in turn, then I have to quit. If I then try to 'Configure Network Interfaces', there is nothing to select.

I then set everything back to individual DHCP and tried it via the web interface. Here when I try configure the LACP, there are no physical NIC's to choose. Ah Ha I thought! There is something in the manual about that. Quote 'if interfaces are installed but do not appear in the Physical NICs in the LAGG list, check that a FreeBSD driver for the interface exists here.' I followed the link and then could not go any further as I have no idea of how to download and install the extra drivers.

So, if my PE 2850 needs NIC drivers, how does it work when not trying to use aggregation (presumably the LAGG driver is different to the standard driver)? If I do indeed need the driver, how do I download it and install it?

Thanks very much for any help

VIBNF
 

cyberjock

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Mar 25, 2012
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You have a driver since they work before you use LACP. My guess is that Broadcom NICs don't have good LACP support in the driver. Broadcom is one of the lesser companies when it comes to NIC driver support.
 

VIBNF

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May 14, 2013
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OK, thanks for that. I'll have to revert back to using 1 NIC and just not connecting the second. The server is not highly loaded so in reality there won't be any impact.
 
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