User Manual

Configuring Groups 35
■ Decide whether you want to use a foreign NIC in one of the groups.
Two foreign NICs (two that are not 3Com EtherLink Server NICs) are allowed in
one group per server.
■ Decide which NIC is to be the primary NIC in each group.
■ Decide whether groups are to perform load balancing:
■ Load balancing groups provide failover and share the network load.
■ Resilient server link groups provide failover, but do not share the network
load.
■ To use bidirectional load balancing, you must assign a dedicated IP address for
each load balancing group. This address must be unique (not used elsewhere
on the network).
■ Obtain the slot numbers of the NICs. You need these numbers if you are
installing more than one NIC. See Obtaining Slot Numbers on page 27 for
instructions.
Adding a Secondary NIC
to a Group
1 Install the new secondary NIC.
Follow the procedures in Installing and Connecting the NIC on page 7.
Connect the new secondary NIC to the network that is used by the group.
2 Make the following changes to the AUTOEXEC.NCF file:
■ Add or verify the LOAD commands for the LAN drivers for all slot-frame
instances.
■ Load the same protocols and frame types on the new secondary NIC.
■ Add the slot number of the new secondary NIC to the LBRSL GROUP
command.
3 Reboot the server.
The sample AUTOEXEC.NCF file in Figure 8 shows a group of three NICs. The
primary NIC in slot 10001 is bound to two secondary NICs in slot 10002 and
slot 10003.