====== Use Network Teaming Or Bonding To Configure Aggregated Network Links Between Two Red Hat Enterprise Linux Systems ======

**General Information**

Network interface teaming is a new method of what RHEL 6 referred to as bonding. There are more available options in RHEL 7's network teaming.

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====== Lab Setup ======

The following virtual machines will be used:
  * server1.example.com (192.168.1.150) -> Configure a team interface backed by to slave interfaces
  * server2.example.com (192.168.1.151) -> Configure a team interface backed by to slave interfaces

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====== Help ======

Finding help in this section.
  * nmcli examples<code bash>man nmcli-examples</code>
  * Team 'runner' config examples<code bash>/usr/share/doc/teamd-1.17/example_configs/</code>

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====== Team Creation ======

Creating a virtual team interface that is backed by two physical network interfaces.

===== Virtualbox Notes =====

To each virtual machine, **add two network interfaces**. 

Each VM should end up with 3 total interfaces:
  * Main Management NIC: 192.168.1.x (server1=150 and server2=151)
  * Additional NIC for team-slave: Can be bridged or private
  * Additional NIC for team-slave: Can be bridged or private

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Due to the limitations of the virtualbox hypervisor, the virtual NICs must be configured to be in promiscuous mode. 

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When NICs are added to a team, the MAC address of the first slave gets duplicated to the team interface and any other slave interfaces added. This confuses the underlying virtualbox hypervisor.

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In Virtualbox (Example from Virtualbox 5.2):
  * Select the EL7 virtual machine
  * Click Settings
  * Click Network
  * Under each Adapter tab, change the Promiscuous Mode drop down to "Allow All"
  * Click OK after changing all adapters

In the EL7 OS
  * Once the VM is booted up, set the interfaces to promiscuous mode<code bash>ip link set enp0s8 promisc on
ip link set enp0s9 promisc on</code>

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===== Packages =====

Install Teamd package (if not already installed)
<code bash>
yum install teamd
</code>

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Install Network Manager team plugin (if not already installed)
<code bash>
yum install NetworkManager-team
</code>

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===== Interface Teaming =====

**On each VM**; Create a new team connection
<code bash>
nmcli con add type team ifname team0 config '{"runner": {"name": "loadbalance"}}'
</code>
  * Connection name is auto-created by combining type and ifname. (team-<ifname>)
    * If you really want to, you can define the con-name during creation
  * Other team "name" types that can be passed in the JSON for runner configuration (man teamd.conf):
    * broadcast -> transmit packets via all ports
    * roundrobin -> transmit in round robin
    * activebackup -> 1 active port, 1 on standby in case of failure
    * loadbalance -> balance between ports
    * lacp -> 802.3ad LACP protocol
  * **Example JSON configs** are available at:
    * /usr/share/doc/teamd-1.17/example_configs/
    * man teamd.conf -> "EXAMPLES" section at the bottom

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Assign a static address to the virtual team0 interface
  * server1 team<code bash>nmcli con mod team-team0 ipv4.method manual ipv4.addresses 10.0.0.10/24</code>
  * server2 team<code bash>nmcli con mod team-team0 ipv4.method manual ipv4.addresses 10.0.0.20/24</code>

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**On each VM**; Add two **unconfigured** interfaces (enp0s8 and enp0s9) to the virtual team0 interface
<code bash>
nmcli con add type team-slave ifname enp0s8 master team0
nmcli con add type team-slave ifname enp0s9 master team0
</code>
  * Connection name is auto-created by combining type and ifname. (team-slave-<ifname>)
    * If you really want to, you can define the con-name during creation
  * If the interfaces have any previous configuration, you may get errors when attempting to set the connections to "up" later on. ("Error: Connection activation failed: Active connection removed before it was initialized")
    * Remove configurations: nmcli con delete <con-name>

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**On each VM**; Configure ports and team as up
<code bash>
nmcli con up team-slave-enp0s8
nmcli con up team-slave-enp0s9
nmcli con up team-team0
</code>

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View team status (by team device name)
<code bash>
teamdctl team0 state
</code>

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**Team Config Command Examples**<code bash>man nmcli-examples</code>

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===== Interface Bonding =====

If you run into issues with teaming not working correctly, you can always set up a bonded connection in order to achieve the objective on the exam.

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This is straight from 'man nmcli-examples':<code bash>nmcli con add type bond ifname mybond0 mode active-backup
nmcli con add type ethernet ifname eth1 master mybond0
nmcli con add type ethernet ifname eth2 master mybond0</code>

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