Guidelines for configuring interface groups

While creating and configuring interface groups, you should follow certain guidelines about the type, MTU size, speed, and media of the underlying interfaces.

The following guidelines apply when you create and configure interface groups on your storage system:

•	All the ports in an interface group must be physically located on the same storage system, but do not need to be on the same network adapter in that storage system.

•	In static multimode and dynamic multimode (LACP) interface groups, the network ports used must have identical characteristics.

Some switches allow for media types to be mixed in interface groups. However, the speed, duplex, and flow control should be identical.

•	You can configure a maximum of eight network interfaces in a single interface group.

•	You cannot include a VLAN interface in an interface group.

•	The interfaces that form an interface group must have the same Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size.

You should configure the MTU size only if you are enabling jumbo frames on the interfaces. If you attempt to create or add to an interface group and the member interfaces have different MTU sizes, Data ONTAP automatically modifies the MTU size to be the same across all member interfaces. To ensure that the desired MTU size is configured, you can use the ifconfig command to configure the MTU size of the interface group after it is created.

Note: Some switches might not support multimode link aggregation of ports configured for jumbo frames. For more information, see your switch vendor's documentation.

•	You can include any type of interface, except the e0M management interface that is present on some storage systems.

•	You should not mix interfaces of different speeds or media in the same multimode interface group.

•	You should apply flow control consistently across the underlying interfaces in an interface group and set it to none.

•	You should set the network interfaces and switch ports that are members of a dynamic multimode interface group to use the same speed, duplex, and flow control settings.

Related concepts

Interface links for a virtual interface