How a 5-minute project to create a redundant network connection made me feel like a tech god.
You know that feeling? The one where you try something new, fully expecting it to blow up in your face, only for it to work perfectly on the first try? It’s a rare and beautiful moment, especially in the world of home labs and DIY tech. I had one of those moments last week, and it all started with a simple goal: setting up a redundant network connection for my server.
It wasn’t born out of necessity, but curiosity. I recently upgraded my router to a model with dual SFP+ ports, and frankly, it seemed like a shame to let them sit there, empty and unused. For a tech enthusiast, an empty port is like an unanswered question. So, with about ten minutes of reading under my belt over the course of a week, I decided to dive in. Time to learn about network bonding.
Why Even Bother with a Redundant Network Connection?
For many, a single ethernet cable is perfectly fine. But when you run a home server with multiple services—like I do with Proxmox, Kubernetes, and various containers—downtime is the enemy. Even a few minutes of a dropped connection can be a major headache.
A redundant network connection, often set up using a technique called link bonding or link aggregation, essentially combines two (or more) physical network connections into a single logical one. This offers two main benefits:
- Failover: If one cable gets unplugged or a port fails, traffic automatically reroutes through the other connection without missing a beat. This means near-zero downtime.
- Increased Bandwidth: In some configurations, you can pool the bandwidth of the connections, though my primary goal was resilience, not raw speed.
My setup involved a Mellanox card in my Proxmox server and the two shiny SFP+ ports on my new router. The challenge? I’m a Linux and K8s guy, not a networking expert. I had just enough knowledge to be dangerous.
The 20-Minute Dive and the Moment of Truth
I set aside some time, expecting a long night of troubleshooting. I dove in about 20 minutes before I had to get ready for bed, a decision that could have gone very, very wrong.
The process itself was surprisingly quick. I configured the bonding on my Proxmox server, which you can learn more about from the official Proxmox documentation. Then, I set up the Link Aggregation Group (LAG) on my router. I did manage to do one small thing out of order on the router, but it was an easy fix. Within five minutes, both ports were bonded and added back to their respective network bridges.
I checked my services. Everything was accessible. Plex was streaming, my containers were responding. So far, so good.
But here came the real test. The moment of truth.
I reached behind my server rack, my hand hovering over one of the two connected ethernet cables. I braced for impact—for services to time out, for my SSH session to freeze, for the triumphant feeling to evaporate.
And I pulled the plug.
…nothing happened.
Everything just kept working. The pings kept pinging. The stream kept streaming. I plugged it back in and pulled the other one. Still, rock solid. It was magic. This is the core principle behind protocols like LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol), which you can read a great overview of on TechTarget. It’s designed for exactly this kind of seamless failover.
From Tech God to Humble Human
For a glorious ten minutes, I felt like a god of computers. I had faced the networking beast with minimal prep and emerged victorious in less time than it takes to make coffee. I had achieved a near-bulletproof redundant network connection without breaking a sweat.
Of course, that feeling never lasts. I know that later this week, I’ll probably spend two hours trying to figure out why a script failed because I forgot a semicolon. I’ll be brought swiftly back to earth, reminded that I am, in fact, still an idiot sometimes.
But for a moment, the world doesn’t suck. A small project goes right, a new skill is learned, and the home lab gets just a little bit better. And that’s what this hobby is all about.
What’s the last project that made you feel like a tech god, even for just a minute?