Server: NetWare Teaming NetWare* 4.1x and 5.0 Adapter Teaming Installation Notes ======================================================== Location of driver: \NWSERVER\AFT.NLM NOTE: AFT is supported on NetWare 4.10 and later only. Overview -------- The PRO/100+ adapter provides several options for increasing throughput and fault tolerance when running NetWare 4.1x or newer: Adapter Fault Tolerance (AFT) - creates a team of 2 - 4 adapters to provide automatic redundancy for your adapter. If the primary adapter fails, a secondary takes over. Adaptive Load Balancing (ALB) - creates a team of 2 - 4 adapters to increase transmission throughput. Also includes AFT option. Works with any 100BASE-TX switch. Fast EtherChannel* (FEC) - creates a team of 2 - 4 adapters to increase transmission and reception throughput. Also includes AFT, ALB functionality option. Requires a Cisco switch with FEC capability. A minimum of two (2) adapter cards must be configured in a team for the AFT.NLM to bind. The AFT.NLM must be loaded prior to loading any LAN driver. Also, frame types must be the same for all adapters in a team. For more information on AFT, ALB or FEC see the Adapter Teaming readme file (TEAMING.TXT). AFT Mixed Teams - The PRO/1000 adapter may be teamed with certain Intel(R)Fast Ethernet adapters. The PRO/1000 should be designated the original primary adapter (first adapter in the AFT BIND command) for best performance. Further, Adapter Fault Tolerance is the only mode available for this setup. Load Balancing is not available for mixed teams of gigabit and Fast Ethernet adapters. NOTE: Each PRO/100+ adapter in a team must be connected to a port which is in the same network. If connected to a switch, each PRO/100+ adapter in a team must be connected to a port which is in the same network. Common load and bind statements for AFT, ALB and FEC modes ---------------------------------------------------------- The following statements will be referenced for all modes. The slot numbers on your server may differ from the example given. ;- Load AFT.NLM (Must be loaded before the LAN driver is loaded.) load aft ;- Load LAN Driver on 1st Adapter load e100b slot=4 frame=ethernet_802.2 name=pri_802.2 load e100b slot=4 frame=ethernet_802.3 name=pri_802.3 load e100b slot=4 frame=ethernet_snap name=pri_snap load e100b slot=4 frame=ethernet_ii name=pri_ii ;- Load LAN Driver on 2nd Adapter load e100b slot=5 frame=ethernet_802.2 name=sec_802.2 load e100b slot=5 frame=ethernet_802.3 name=sec_802.3 load e100b slot=5 frame=ethernet_snap name=sec_snap load e100b slot=5 frame=ethernet_ii name=sec_ii ;- Bind ipx to 1st adapter only bind ipx pri_802.2 net=2 bind ipx pri_802.3 net=3 bind ipx pri_snap net=5 bind ip pri_ii addr=127.0.0.1 mask=255.255.255.0 ;- Use only one of the following commands depending on the ;- mode desired. Details of each command follow. ;- For AFT mode aft bind 4 5 ;- For ALB mode aft balance 4 5 ;- For FEC mode aft fec 4 5 Upon successful invocation, the following message is displayed: AFT Group has been created with primary adapter in slot X. It will be activated upon completion of network topology test. If there is a problem, check the cabling, the switch configuration (for VLAN), and see that the adapter is seated properly. Adapter Fault Tolerance Mode ============================ Adapter Fault Tolerance (AFT) provides Adapter redundancy for two PRO/100+ adapters. When configured, these are set up as a primary and secondary PRO/100+ adapter(s). If the primary loses communication with the hub/switch, the secondary automatically takes over. The secondary adapter will take over for such reasons as cable connection problems, switch or hub port failure or adapter failure. Format: AFT BIND PrimarySlotNumber SecondarySlotNumber Example: aft bind 4 5 AFT NLM can also be bound by specifying logical names. For example: AFT NAMEBIND pri_802.2 sec_802.2 NOTES: Only one name from each adapter needs to be bound. For teaming to work reliably, Intel recommends that Packet Receive Buffers be set accordingly: Recommended Minimum Settings: 1 adapter: 100 2 adapters: 200 3 adapters: 300 4 adapters: 400 In general, the MINIMUM value you specify must be at least 100 times the number of PRO/100+ adapters in the computer. The Packet Receive Buffers are specified in the following lines: SET MINIMUM PACKET RECEIVE BUFFERS = 100 (or larger) SET MAXIMUM PACKET RECEIVE BUFFERS = 500 (or larger) The MAXIMUM you can specify depends on the amount of memory in the server, but it must be greater than the MINIMUM. Adaptive Load Balancing Mode ============================ Adaptive Load Balancing (ALB) increases transmission throughput and provides adapter redundancy. When configured, there is a team of 2 - 4 adapters. One adapter is used for receiving and transmitting, all other team members transmit only. Includes AFT option in that if the primary (RxTx) adapter fails, one of the secondary adapters will take over that function. ALB works with any 100BASE-TX switch. AFT will report the number of adapters in the team. Format: AFT BALANCE PrimarySlotNumber Secondary Example: AFT BALANCE 4 5 Adapters can also be bound to Adaptive Load Balance mode by specifying logical names in the bind command Format: AFT BALANCE NAMEBIND PrimaryName SecondaryName Example: AFT BALANCE NAMEBIND pri_802.2 sec_802.2 Note: Only one name from each adapter needs to be bound. For additional adapters, load the LAN drivers similarly to the second adapter then bind aft to all adapters. (For more information, see "Common load and bind statements for AFT, ALB and FEC modes" earlier in this readme). Format: AFT BALANCE PrimarySlotNumber Secondary Secondary Secondary Example: AFT BALANCE 4 5 6 7 Fast EtherChannel* Mode ======================= Fast EtherChannel* (FEC) increases receive and transmit throughput and provides adapter redundancy. When configured, there is a team of 2 to 4 adapters. All adapters are capable of receiving and transmitting. FEC includes AFT and ALB functionality. Note: This feature requires a Cisco switch with FEC capability, and the switch must have Spanning Tree Protocol turned off. Format: AFT FEC PrimarySlotNumber SecondarySlotNumber Example: AFT FEC 4 5 Adapters can also be bound to Fast EtherChannel by specifying logical names in the bind command. For example: AFT FEC NAMEBIND pri_802.2 sec_802.2 For additional adapters load the LAN drivers similarly to the second adapter then bind aft to all adapters. (For more information, see "Common load and bind statements for AFT, ALB and FEC modes" earlier in this readme). Format: AFT BALANCE PrimarySlotNumber Secondary Secondary Secondary Example: AFT FEC 4 5 6 7 Please refer to the documentation that came with your Cisco switch for instructions on configuring Fast EtherChannel on the switch. Additional Information ====================== Following are some commands that can be helpful in configuring or troubleshooting Adapter Fault Tolerance. Usually the default values are suitable for most networks. Command: AFT BIND, AFT Namebind, AFT Balance, AFT Balance Namebind ------------------------------------------------------------------ Error Conditions: If you receive the error message: "Failed to create AFT group. Make sure that the drivers for supported adapters are loaded, primary adapter is bound to protocols and secondary adapter is not bound to any protocols." Check the following: 1 The slot number is valid for the primary and secondary adapter. 2 The primary adapter has a protocol stack bound to it. 3 The secondary adapter is not bound to a protocol stack. 4 AFT is not being bound to an unsupported adapter. Command: AFT FEC, AFT FEC Namebind --------------------------------- Error Conditions: If you receive the error message: "LAN driver loopback error detected. Driver for network x received its own packet." Check the following: 1 All adapters are plugged into a Cisco Switch blade that supports FEC and the switch is properly configured. Command: AFT CLEAR SLOT ----------------------- Description: Used for issuing a hardware reset to the slot in the system. This command is particularly useful after a transceiver failure has happened and the user is trying to correct the problem. Format: AFT CLEAR SLOT SlotNumber Example: AFT CLEAR SLOT 10001 Command: AFT LINK TIMEOUT ------------------------- Description: Used for setting the link timeout value. During the binding process, AFT does a network topology test for short period of time before creating an Adapter Fault Tolerance group. This test ensures that both cards are connected to the same network segment, and that they can properly transfer data. The default value for this parameter is 5 seconds. When using AFT with certain Fast Ethernet switches, AFT may fail to create the group within the five second timeout. In this case, the timeout should be extended to allow the switch to begin passing traffic. The recommended value is 40 seconds for Catalyst* 5000 and other Cisco switches. This command must be issued before the AFT BIND command. Format: AFT LINK TIMEOUT TimeoutValue Example: AFT LINK TIMEOUT 40 Command: AFT STATUS ------------------- Description: Displays the current ACTIVE status for the primary and secondary adapters in an AFT/ALB/FEC team. Format: AFT STATUS Example: AFT STATUS Command: AFT SET FEC ALERT ON ----------------------------- Description: By default, alert messages in FEC mode are OFF. This is because there is no way to accurately determine the state of adapter or link other than detecting that there is network traffic on other adapters in the team but none on the one in question. On fairly quiet networks, this may cause the error log to fill with spurious messages. This command will turn the logging functionality on for FEC. Note: event logging for AFT and ALB is always on and cannot be shut off. Format: AFT SET FEC ALERT ON Command: AFT SET FEC ALERT OFF ------------------------------ Description: This command is used to disable event logging (for FEC only) when it had previously been turned on manually. Format: AFT SET FEC ALERT OFF Command: AFT SET PREF --------------------- Description: This command creates a preferred primary. Format: AFT SET PREF TeamSlot PreferredSlot Example: AFT SET PREF 4 5 This makes adapter 5 the preferred primary for the AFT team whose original primary adapter was in slot 4. Specifies which adapter in the AFT team to use as the preferred primary adapter. If the Preferred Primary adapter fails and is later replaced or if a cable is reattached to fix a failure on the primary adapter, the secondary adapter automatically passes control back to the preferred primary. For example if you have a server with a PRO/1000 Gigabit adapter as the primary adapter and a PRO/100+ adapter as the secondary, you would want the PRO/1000 Gigabit adapter to be the preferred primary. In this scenario, if the PRO/1000 adapter fails, the PRO/100+ will take over. Then when the PRO/1000 is replaced, it will automatically revert to being the primary adapter in the team. Note: This command may cause a failover to occur if the new preferred primary is active and not the currently assigned primary. Command: AFT CLEAR PREF ----------------------- Description: This command clears a preferred primary designation. Format: AFT CLEAR PREF TeamSlot Example: AFT CLEAR PREF 4 This clears the preferred primary adapter setting for the AFT team whose original primary adapter was in slot 4. * Third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.