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This section describes how to use the xe CLI to bond NIC interfaces on a XenServer host that is not in a pool. See
the section called “Creating NIC bonds in resource pools” for details on using the xe CLI to create NIC bonds on
XenServer hosts that comprise a resource pool.
Creating a NIC bond
When you bond a NIC, the bond absorbs the PIF/NIC currently in use as the primary management interface. From
XenServer 6.0 onwards, the primary management interface is automatically moved to the bond PIF.
Bonding two NICs
1. Use the network-create command to create a new network for use with the bonded NIC. The UUID of the
new network is returned:
xe network-create name-label=<bond0>
2. Use the pif-list command to determine the UUIDs of the PIFs to use in the bond:
xe pif-list
3. Do one of the following:
• To configure the bond in active-active mode (default), use the bond-create command to create the bond.
Using commas to separate the parameters, specify the newly created network UUID and the UUIDs of
the PIFs to be bonded:
xe bond-create network-uuid=<network_uuid> pif-uuids=<pif_uuid_1>,<pif_uuid_2>
The UUID for the bond is returned after running the command.
• To configure the bond in active-passive mode, use the same syntax but add the optional mode parameter
and specify active-backup:
xe bond-create network-uuid=<network_uuid> pif-uuids=<pif_uuid_1>,<pif_uuid_2> /
mode=<balance-slb | active-backup>
Note:
In previous releases, you specified the other-config:bond-mode to change the bond
mode. While this command still works in XenServer 6.0, it may be not be supported in future
releases and it is not as efficient as the mode parameter. other-config:bond-mode
requires running pif-unplug and pif-plug to get the mode change to take effect.
Controlling the MAC Address of the Bond
When you bond the primary management interface, the PIF/NIC currently in use as the primary management
interface is subsumed by the bond. If the host uses DHCP, in most cases the bond's MAC address is the same as
the PIF/NIC currently in use, and the primary management interface's IP address can remain unchanged.
You can change the bond's MAC address so that it is different from the MAC address for the (current) primary
management-interface NIC. However, as the bond is enabled and the MAC/IP address in use changes, existing
network sessions to the host will be dropped.
You can control the MAC address for a bond in two ways:
• An optional mac parameter can be specified in the bond-create command. You can use this parameter to set
the bond MAC address to any arbitrary address.
• If the mac parameter is not specified, from XenServer 6.0 onwards, XenServer uses the MAC address of the
primary management interface if this is one of the interfaces in the bond. If the primary management interface
is not part of the bond, but another management interface is, the bond uses the MAC address (and also the
IP address) that management interface. If none of the NICs in the bond are management interfaces, the bond
uses the MAC of the first named NIC.