Configuration of bond0 on bare metal edge node fails with error, "bond0: option mode: unable to set because the bond device has slaves"

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

• After the installation of a new bare metal edge node, bond0 interface needs to be configured for management networking.
• There are only 2 network adapters configured on the Edge node.
• And the same set of network adapters need to be configured for management and data-plane networking.
• Hence, "in-band" management networking needs to be configured on the Edge node. 
• VLAN is used to segregate the management and data-plane traffic.
• However, when configuring bond0 for "in-band" management, it fails with the error.

Edge Node> set interface bond0 vlan <vlan> plane mgmt
Edge Node> set interface bond0.<vlan> ip 192.##.##.# / ## gateway 192.##.##.# plane mgmt node active-backup members ethA,ethB primary ethA
[44038.099468] bond0: option mode: unable to set because the bond device has slaves

• Even though the configuration fails, one of the interfaces is still reported as part of the bond0.

Edge Node> get interfaces

Interface : bond0

IPv4:

Address : unknoun
Broadcast address: None

NAC address: aa:bb:cc:cc:bb:aa
MTU: 1500
KNI: False
Bond mode: ACTIVE_BACKUP
Bond primary slave: None
Bond currently active slave: ethB
Bond slaves: ethB
Link status: down
Admin status: up

• Clearing all the interface existing configuration, and running the commands again fails with same behavior.

Environment

VMware NSX

Cause

• To configure in-band, the MAC address of the interface being used needs to be specified.
• Only one MAC address can be designated for in-band management.
  • Note: Redundancy is not supported for in-band management interface.
• Additionally, since bond interfaces link bond0 virtually bind two or more physical interfaces, they are not supported for in-band management configuration.

Resolution

"in-band" management can be only be configured with one interface. For configuring In-band management, please refer below commands:

• set interface mac <mac_address> vlan <vlan_ID> in-band plane mgmt
• (Static) set interface ethA.<vlan_ID> ip <CIDR> gateway <gateway-ip> plane mgmt

However, if additional interfaces are configured that can be dedicated solely to the management network, then the bond can be configured for networking purposes using an out-of-band configuration. For configuring Out-of-band management, please refer the below commands:

• set interface bond0 vlan <vlan> plane mgmt
• set interface bond0 ip x.x.x.x/mask gateway x.x.x.x plane mgmt mode active-backup members ethA,ethB primary ethA


Additional Information

For more information regarding the installation of Bare Metal Edge nodes, please refer: Install Bare Metal NSX Edge Automatically using ISO File