GUIDE: Oracle VM VirtualBox and Oracle Linux NIC bonding

Question

Author: Dude
Date: 01-Jun-2013
Version: B
Last updates:
23-Jul-2013, changes required due to forum upgrade
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What is Linux network interface bonding? Simply put, the Linux system provides a kernel driver, which can create a logical network device (bond) using 2 or more Network Interface Controllers (NIC) to accomplish link-aggregation and adapter fault-tolerance. For more information, please see the Deployment Guide at https://linux.oracle.com/documentation/
The channel bonding interface supports several modes of operation. In a typical active-backup set up for fault-tolerance, the system performs MII-based health monitoring of the network interface slaves (eth0, eth1) and assigns them according to bond options and interface availability. In active-backup mode (mode 1), only the current active network device is seen externally.
Linux bonding for fault-tolerance under Oracle VM VirtualBox does not seem to function as advertised. Searching the Internet for more information shows that other people have tried to set up Linux bonding using various virtualization products, virtual host network adapter and bonding options, but without success.
It appears the management of Media Access Control addresses (MAC) interferes with internal routing methods between the host and the virtual machine guest. Using the modinfo bonding command (fig. 1) shows a listing of available parameters for the bonding kernel module. The fail_over_mac parameter addresses the Mac address issue in VirtualBox.
Fig.1
# modinfo bonding
filename:       /lib/modules/2.6.39-400.17.1.el6uek.x86_64
                /kernel/drivers/net/bonding/bonding.ko
parm:           fail_over_mac:For active-backup,
                do not set all slaves to the same MAC;
                0 for none (default), 1 for active, 2 for follow (charp)
Configuration Example
Virtualization Product: Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.2.10
VM Guest OS: Oracle Linux 6.4 (x64)
VM adapter settings: Bridged Adapter, Paravirtualized Network (virtio-net)
Adapter1 (eth0): 080027436617, en0, Ethernet 1
Adapter2 (eth1): 08002708F36A, en0, Ethernet 1
Note: If you wish to reset the network adapter names and MAC addresses used by the Oracle Linux guest system, erase the content of /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules and restart the virtual machine.
1. Create or modify the following configuration files:
/etc/modprobe.d/bonding-eth0_eth1.conf
alias bond0 bonding
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0
DEVICE=bond0
IPADDR=10.0.2.12
NETMASK=255.0.0.0
GATEWAY=10.0.0.138
DNS1=10.0.0.138
DNS2=8.8.8.8
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=none
USERCTL=no
BONDING_OPTS="mode=1 miimon=100 fail_over_mac=1"
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
USERCTL=no
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1
DEVICE=eth1
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
USERCTL=no
2. Restart the system or network services (root):
Fig. 2
# service network restart
Configuration Test
Enter the following commands as user root to verify proper operation of NIC bonding:
Fig. 3
# tail /var/log/messages
bond0: setting mode to active-backup (1).
bond0: Setting MII monitoring interval to 100.
bond0: Setting fail_over_mac to active (1).
bond0: Adding slave eth0.
bond0: making interface eth0 the new active one.
bond0: first active interface up!
bond0: enslaving eth0 as an active interface with an up link.
bond0: Adding slave eth1.
bond0: enslaving eth1 as a backup interface with an up link.
Fig. 4
# ifconfig
bond0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:43:66:17 
          inet addr:10.0.2.12  Bcast:10.255.255.255  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fe43:6617/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MASTER MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:43:66:17 
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:08:F3:6A 
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
Fig. 5
# netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
0.0.0.0         10.0.0.138      0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 bond0
10.0.0.0        0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U         0 0          0 bond0
169.254.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U         0 0          0 bond0
Fig. 6
# ifconfig eth0 down
# tail /var/log/messages
bond0: link status definitely down for interface eth0, disabling it
bond0: making interface eth1 the new active one.
# ifconfig
bond0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:08:F3:6A 
          inet addr:10.0.2.12  Bcast:10.255.255.255  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fe43:6617/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MASTER MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:08:F3:6A 
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
Fig. 7
# ifconfig eth0 up
# ifconfig eth1 down
# tail /var/log/messages
bond0: link status definitely up for interface eth0, 4294967295 Mbps full duplex.
bond0: link status definitely down for interface eth1, disabling it
bond0: making interface eth0 the new active one.
# ifconfig
bond0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:43:66:17 
          inet addr:10.0.2.12  Bcast:10.255.255.255  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fe43:6617/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MASTER MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:43:66:17 
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
During the above test, the client network connection from host 10.0.0.1 (ssh) was maintained without any noticeable interruption. As it can be seen from the syslog and ifconfig command output, the bond0 interface was automatically assigned either the MAC address of eth0 or eth1 and the fail-over worked as advertised.
Good luck!

Answer 1

Please see these docs/links.
Using Oracle VM with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i or Release 12 [ID 465915.1]
Certified Software on Oracle VM [ID 464754.1]
Oracle VM Templates -- Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3 (32-bit), Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.1 (64-bit and 32-bit) and Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.X Sparse Middle Tier (32-bit)
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/vm/ebs-093153.html
E-Business Suite 12.1.3 Templates for Oracle VM Now Available
http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2010/11/ebs1213_oraclevm.html
Live Migration of EBS Services Using Oracle VM
http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2010/01/ebs_live_migration_ovm.html
Using Oracle VM with Oracle E-Business Suite Virtualization Kit
http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2009/12/oracle_vm_ebs_virtualization_kit.html
New Oracle® VM Templates for Oracle Applications Now Available
http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/068341
Very Cool! New Oracle VM Templates for Oracle E-Business Suite
http://blogs.oracle.com/virtualization/2010/11/very_cool_new_oracle_vm_templa.html
Thanks,
Hussein