IFENSLAVE(8)

📦
this version · 2 versions
, in centos-stream 10, centos-stream 9, fedora 43, fedora 44

💅 ifenslave(8) 💅

okay so bestie, let me put you onto something iconic — it's called ifenslave, and it's literally the main character of network bonding. we're talking manual page from 2004-04-09, and she's still serving. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

ifenslave [-acdfhuvV] [--all-interfaces] [--change-active] [--detach]
          [--force] [--help] [--usage] [--verbose] [--version] master
          slave ...

like, look at her go. all those flags? immaculate. 🦋

📖 DESCRIPTION 📖

okay so here's the tea, bestie: ifenslave is a tool that lets you attach and detach slave network devices to a bonding device. no cap. 💖

a bonding device will act like a normal Ethernet network device to the kernel, but — and this is the slay part — it will send out the packets via the slave devices using a simple round-robin scheduler. it's giving load-balancing realness, literally identical to "channel bonding" or "trunking" techniques used in switches. the way that works? iconic. 🧚

⚠️ important vibe check: the kernel must have support for bonding devices for ifenslave to be useful. no kernel support, no slay. periodt. 💀

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -a, --all-interfaces — shows off info about all the interfaces. every single one. 💅
  • -c, --change-active — changes the active slave. switch it up, bestie. 🔄
  • -d, --detach — removes slave interfaces from the bonding device. it's giving "you can't sit with us" energy. ✂️
  • -f, --force — forces actions to be taken if one of the specified interfaces appears not to belong to an Ethernet device. like, she does it anyway. no questions. 🔥
  • -h, --help — displays a help message and exits. the classic "help me help you" moment. 🫶
  • -u, --usage — shows usage information and exits. just the basics, lowkey. 🌸
  • -v, --verbose — prints warning and debug messages. she's chatty and we love that for her. 🗣️
  • -V, --version — shows version information and exits. a little "who am i?" moment. 👑

if no options are given — like, none at all — the default action will be to enslave interfaces. that's the vibe. that's the default. ⭐

🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

okay bestie, here's how you actually do the thing. the following example shows how to setup a bonding device and enslave two real Ethernet devices to it. so iconic:

# modprobe bonding
# ifconfig bond0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.0.0
# ifenslave bond0 eth0 eth1

like, modprobe first (obvi), then give bond0 an IP and netmask, then serve the enslavement. ate and left no crumbs. 🍓

👑 AUTHOR 👑

ifenslave was originally written by Donald Becker <becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov>, and has since been updated by various kernel developers. legends only. 💜

this manual page was written by Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org> for the Debian GNU/Linux system. queen behavior, fr fr. 🎀

this queen was last updated on 2004-04-09! 🌟

🌈 stay bonded bestie! 🌈

📦 where this page comes from