Sun Fire V445 Server Administration Guide - SCN Research

The Ethernet driver is installed automatically during the Solaris installation
procedure.
For instructions on configuring the system network interfaces, see:
■ “Configuring the Primary Network Interface” on page 132
■ “Configuring Additional Network Interfaces” on page 133
About Redundant Network Interfaces
Two Sun Gigabit Ethernet (bge0 and bge1) interfaces are on one controller and two
(bge2 and bge3) are on another controller. These interfaces are connected to the
Broadcom 5714 chips, which are Dual Ethernet controller and PCI-X bridge
components.
You can configure your system with redundant network interfaces to provide a
highly available network connection. Such a configuration relies on special Solaris
software features to detect a failed or failing network interface and automatically
switch all network traffic over to the redundant interface. This capability is known
as automatic failover.
To set up redundant network interfaces, you can enable automatic failover between
the two similar interfaces using the IP Network Multipathing feature of the Solaris
OS. For additional details, see “About Multipathing Software” on page 109. You can
also install a pair of identical PCI network interface cards, or add a single card that
provides an interface identical to one of the two on-board Ethernet interfaces.
To ensure maximum redundancy, each on-board Ethernet interface resides on a
different PCI bus. To help further maximize system availability, ensure that any
additional network interfaces added for redundancy also reside on separate PCI
buses, which are supported by separate PCI bridges. For additional details, see
“About the PCI Cards and Buses” on page 75.
130 Sun Fire V445 Server Administration Guide • August 2006