RHEL 5.4 - Kickstarting Ethernet Bonding Fails. 5.1 Works with out issue

[nuonce]

Background;

Previously, when provisioning a server using RHEL 5.1 as the base install, during the %post section of the kick start, the following network files are modified to make ethernet bonding work;

/etc/modprobe.conf
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1
/etc/sysconfig/network

The system comes up, and bonding works with out issue.

The *ONLY* that has changed is that RHEL v5.4 is now used during the base install. The %post section of the KS has not been modified. When the system comes up, the interface bond0 shows up, eth0 shows prime and eth1 show backup.

Ethernet bonding is setup for active-backup.

Now, I can reboot 'X' amount of times, no traffic will pass through the interface.

In /etc/sysconfig/network, if I change "NETWORKING_IPV6=", and change it to "NO", reboot. Then the ethernet bonding works with out issue.

If I change it back to "YES", and reboot, traffic continues to pass with out issue.

I have been over the /var/log/message file, and no errors are displayed. Nothing "pops" out.

IPv6, while enabled, is NOT used.
Yes, if IPv6 is disabled during the KS procedure, it works with out issue, and while this can be the fix, I still need to know what could possibly cause it.

I have googled to I couldn't google anymore.

Out of /etc/modprobe.conf;
alias bond0 bonding
options bond0 mode=active-backup arp_interval=1000 arp_ip_target=x.x.x.x

Out of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0
DEVICE=bond0
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
NETWORK=x.x.x.x
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
IPADDR=x.x.x.x
USERCTL=no

Out of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
DHCPCLASS=
ONBOOT=yes
MASTER=bond0
SLAVE=yes
USERCTL=no

ifcfg-eth1 looks just like ifcfg-eth0, with the exception of the "DEVICE=" line.

NOT Working;
cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0
noa1or01:#/tmp/test> cat bond0
Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.4.0 (October 7, 2008)

Bonding Mode: fault-tolerance (active-backup)
Primary Slave: None
Currently Active Slave: None
MII Status: up
MII Polling Interval (ms): 0
Up Delay (ms): 0
Down Delay (ms): 0
ARP Polling Interval (ms): 1000
ARP IP target/s (n.n.n.n form):

Slave Interface: eth0
MII Status: up
Link Failure Count: 1
Permanent HW addr: Y:Y:Y:Y:Y:Y

Slave Interface: eth1
MII Status: down
Link Failure Count: 1
Permanent HW addr: X:X:X:X:X:X

WORKING;
Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.4.0 (October 7, 2008)

Bonding Mode: fault-tolerance (active-backup)
Primary Slave: None
Currently Active Slave: eth1
MII Status: up
MII Polling Interval (ms): 0
Up Delay (ms): 0
Down Delay (ms): 0
ARP Polling Interval (ms): 1000
ARP IP target/s (n.n.n.n form): my.default.gw.ip

Slave Interface: eth0
MII Status: up
Link Failure Count: 1
Permanent HW addr: Y:Y:Y:Y:Y:Y

Slave Interface: eth1
MII Status: up
Link Failure Count: 1
Permanent HW addr: X:X:X:X:X:X

If any other output may be required, I should have that available as well. I can duplicate this problem.

The very odd thing too. If I "yum update" a RHEL v5.1 v5.4, and bonding was already setup, bonding works with out issue after the yum update as well.

[trystan]

You need to set BONDING_OPTS in ifcfg-bond0

For example,
BONDING_OPTS="mode=1 primary=eth0 arp_interval=60 arp_ip_target=192.168.0.1"