While setting up a few Debian Lenny machines this summer, I came across the error message SIOCSIFADDR: No such device a few times. All of these servers have NIC bonding configured, and a few of them have multiple Ethernet bonds. Here are a couple of potential causes for this error message:

• The /etc/modprobe.d/arch/X86_64 file does not contain the bonded device name. For multiple bonded devices, the file must contain an alias entry for each. Here is an example for a two device system named bond0 and bond1:

  
  alias bond0 bonding
  alias bond1 bonding
  
  

• The /etc/modules module for bonding (bonding mode=4 miimon=100 max_bonds=2) is configured for fewer bonds than the server has. The here max_bonds=2 is the maximum number of bonding devices your system will have. The default is 1. If you machine has more, then SIOCSIFADDR: No such device will appear for the devices that did not come up.

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Posted by Stu Thompson on 26 July 2010 11:19:00 CEST #