Citrix Systems 5.6 Creating NIC bonds in resource pools, Controlling the MAC address of the bond

8.Use the pif-reconfigure-ipcommand to remove the IP address configuration from the non-bonded PIF previously used for the management interface. This step is not strictly necessary but might help reduce confusion when reviewing the host networking configuration.

xe pif-reconfigure-ip uuid=<old_management_pif_uuid> mode=None

9.Move existing VMs to the bond network using the vif-destroyand vif-createcommands. This step can also be completed using XenCenter by editing the VM configuration and connecting the existing VIFs of a VM to the bond network.

10.Restart the VMs shut down in step 1.

Controlling the MAC address of the bond

Creating a bond on a dual-NIC host implies that the PIF/NIC currently in use as the management interface for the host will be subsumed by the bond. If DHCP is used to supply IP addresses to the host in most cases the MAC address of the bond should be the same as the PIF/NIC currently in use, allowing the IP address of the host received from DHCP to remain unchanged.

The MAC address of the bond can be changed from PIF/NIC currently in use for the management interface, but doing so will cause existing network sessions to the host to be dropped when the bond is enabled and the MAC/IP address in use changes.

The MAC address to be used for a bond can be controlled in two ways:

•an optional mac parameter can be specified in the bond-createcommand. Using this parameter, the bond MAC address can be set to any arbitrary address.

•If the mac parameter is not specified, the MAC address of the first PIF listed in the pif-uuidsparameter is used for the bond.

Reverting NIC bonds

If reverting a XenServer host to a non-bonded configuration, be aware of the following requirements:

•As when creating a bond, all VMs with VIFs on the bond must be shut down prior to destroying the bond. After reverting to a non-bonded configuration, reconnect the VIFs to an appropriate network.

•Move the management interface to another PIF using the pif-reconfigure-ipand host-management- reconfigure commands prior to issuing the bond-destroycommand, otherwise connections to the host (including XenCenter) will be dropped.

Creating NIC bonds in resource pools

Whenever possible, create NIC bonds as part of initial resource pool creation prior to joining additional hosts to the pool or creating VMs. Doing so allows the bond configuration to be automatically replicated to hosts as they are joined to the pool and reduces the number of steps required. Adding a NIC bond to an existing pool requires creating the bond configuration manually on the master and each of the members of the pool. Adding a NIC bond to an existing pool after VMs have been installed is also a disruptive operation, as all VMs in the pool must be shut down.

Citrix recommends using XenCenter to create NIC bonds. For details, refer to the XenCenter help.

This section describes using the xe CLI to create bonded NIC interfaces on XenServer hosts that comprise a resource pool. See the section called “Creating a NIC bond on a dual-NIC host” for details on using the xe CLI to create NIC bonds on a standalone XenServer host.

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