How to change the bonding mode without rebooting the system?

Resolution

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or 6, the bonding mode can be changed like this:

Here is an example about how to change bonding mode from 0 to 1 in RHEL5 or 6:

1. Find current bonding mode:

#cd /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding

#cat mode

 balance-rr   0              

The current bonding mode is round-robin.

2. Change the bonding mode:

#ifdown bond0

#echo 1 >mode

#cat mode

active-backup 1

Now the bonding mode has been changed to active-backup.

3. Up the bond0 again:

#ifup bond0

4. Check if the bonding mode has been changed:

#cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, the bonding mode can be changed like this:

Here is an example about how to change bonding mode from 0 to 1 in RHEL4:

1. Find current bonding mode:

# cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0

...

Bonding mode: round-robin

The  current bonding mode is round-robin.

2. Down all bonding information and change the bonding mode:

# ifdown bond0

(down other bonding interfaces if you have)

# rmmod bonding

- Edit /etc/modprobe.conf to change the bonding options (the line should look like the following)
options bonding mode=0 miimon=100
- This can be changed to:
options bonding mode=1 miimon=100

3. Up the bond0 (and other bonding interface) again. The bonding module will be reloaded automatically:

# ifup bond0

4. Check if the bonding mode has been changed:

#cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0