errno’s blog

Solaris IP MultiPathing

Solaris IPMP provides resilience from network adapter failure by detecting the failure or repair of a network adapter and switching the network address to and from the alternative adapter. Moreover, when more than one network adapter is functional, Solaris IPMP increases data throughput by spreading outbound packets across adapters..

Setting IPMP is quite easy. Let’s assume, that we have 2 network adapters: e1000g0 and e1000g1. They are going to be in the same network (10.0.0.0/24). First of all, we have to add entries to the /etc/hosts/ file:

10.0.0.1 server-e1000g0
10.0.0.2 server-e1000g1
10.0.0.3 server-mgmt

Make sure, that you have correct netmask set in /etc/netmasks like:

10.0.0.0 255.255.255.0

Then we have to create 2 files called: /etc/hostname.e1000g0:

server-e1000g0 netmask + broadcast + group mgmt deprecated -failover up addif server-mgmt netmask + broadcast + failover up

and /etc/hostname.e1000g1:

server-e1000g1 netmask + broadcast + group mgmt deprecated -failover standby up.

That’s it. The IPMP is already configured. Please, do remember to put some static routes just in case you have more than one network configured on your Solaris box. It’s just to keep IPMP happy.