Bonding not working with bnx2x

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 3

Server is of type "Blade" (e.g. Proliant BL460c G6) with nic driver bnx2x

Situation

Bonding device is not working

When performing cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0 the following information is being displayed:
Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.2.5 (March21, 2008)

Bonding Mode: fault-tolerance (active-backup)
Primary Slave: None
Currently Active Slave: None
MII Status: down
MII Polling Interval (ms): 100
Up Delay (ms): 0
Down Delay (ms): 0

Resolution

Since SLES10 SP3 the option use_carrier=1 needs to be added.

An example:
BONDING_MODULE_OPTS='miimon=100 mode=balance-tlb use_carrier=1'

Disclaimer

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