Step-by-Step Setup of 802.3ad/LACP Network Bonding on VPS

Have you ever experienced slow mesh speed on your VPS even when there is hardly any activity? I have felt like this many years ago when I was first trying to host small projects, so I decided to give network bonding a try and specifically, tried out 802.3ad/LACP.

To my surprise, I saw an upgrade in my performance speed and better network reliability right away. It sounds complicated, but it is actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

What Is Network Bonding?​

Network bonding allows you to bond 2 or more network interfaces into one. Basically, it is like adding a lane for your VPS to drive on. When using network bonding, you are allowing your VPS to gain better speed and reliability.

I once tried LACP (802.3ad) on my VPS cluster and I was so impressed by how much stable the network performance became. It wasn’t a big rush of power by any means, but the dropped connections went away without needing to restart the VPS, and things just felt smooth.

Why Use 802.3ad/LACP?​

Here are a few reasons to use first:

• Bands together multiple links to have more bandwidth.
• Fallback failover supported to keep your VPS running as expected even when one link drops.
• Load balancing by segmenting traffic across links.
• Clean management of network services running multiple servers.

Have you ever thought about this setup being worth it? If you are concerned about uptime (or consistent performance), the answer is yes.

How LACP Works​

The LACP protocol helps your VPS talk with the host system and agree to bonding multiple links into a group. In essence, it's like you're instructing the system to "Go team!" However, just make sure to verify with your VPS provider because not all providers support bonding; you don't want to deal with that headache later.

How to Set Up LACP On a VPS​

You can perform this on most Linux distributions (including Ubuntu, Debian, and CentOS).

Step 1: Enable Bonding​

sudo modprobe bonding

Always make sure to run this first so you don't break anything later.

Step 2: Create the bond interface​

Add the following to your network config:

auto bond0
iface bond0 inet dhcp

• bond-mode 802.3ad
• bond-miimon 100
• bond-slaves eth0 eth1
• bond-lacp-rate 1

It looks like a lot of technical stuff, but it's relatively simple once you wrap your mind around it.

Step 3: Restart networking​

sudo systemctl restart networking

That's it, your VPS is now running LACP bonding.

Helpful Tips​

Here are a few thing i learned myself:

• Check with your VPS provider that they support this first.
• Use ethernet cards that have the same speed.
• Look at /proc/net/bonding/bond0, to see if bonding is properly working.
• Always save a backup of your network config before you start making changes.