Technical data

Working with Link Aggregation
Check Point VSX Administration Guide NGX R67 | 143
If a smaller number of interfaces will be able to handle the expected traffic, you can increase redundancy by
explicitly defining the number of critical interfaces. Divide your maximal expected traffic speed by the speed
of your interfaces and round up to a whole number to determine an appropriate number of critical interfaces.
To explicitly define the number of critical interfaces, create and edit the following file:
$FWDIR/conf/cpha_bond_ls_config.conf
Each line of the file should be of the following syntax:
<bondname> <critical#>
For example, if bond0 has seven interfaces and bond1 has six interfaces, file contents could be:
bond0 5
bond1 3
In this case bond0 would be considered down when three of its interfaces have failed. bond1 would be
considered down when four of its interfaces have failed.
Setting Affinities
If you are running Performance Pack in a multi-core system, after you define bonds, set affinities manually.
Use the -s option of the sim affinity command (see Performance Pack documentation).
Note - sim affinity commands take effect only if the Performance Pack is enabled and actually running.
Performance Pack begins running when you install a policy for the first time.
For optimal performance, set affinities according to the following guidelines:
1. Run sim affinity using the -s option.
2. Whenever possible, dedicate one processing core to each interface. See sk33520
(http://supportcontent.checkpoint.com/solutions?id=sk33250).
3. If there are more interfaces than cores, one or more cores handle two interfaces. Use interface pairs of
the same position with internal and external bonds.
a) To view interface positions in a bond, run:
cat /proc/net/bonding/<bond name>.
b) Note the sequence of the interfaces in the output, and compare this for the two bonds (external bond
and its respective internal bond). Interfaces that appear in the same position in the two bonds are
interface pairs and set to be handled by one processing core.
For example, you might have four processing cores (0-3) and six interfaces (0-5), distributed among two
bonds:
bond0
bond1
eth0
eth3
eth1
eth4
eth2
eth5
Two of the cores will need to handle two interfaces each. An optimal configuration might be:
bond0
bond1
eth0
core 0
eth3
core 0
eth1
core 1
eth4
core 1
eth2
core 2
eth5
core 3