freebsd-nq/share/man/man4/bridge.4
Bruce A. Mah da4faae106 Finally document the net.link.ether.bridge_cfg and
net.link.ether.bridge_refresh variables.  While I'm here, try to
make some of the markup on this page more consistent with the
new (markup-reviewed) content.

PR:		22060
Reviewed by:	ru (for markup, on an earlier version of this delta)
MFC after:	2 days
2001-07-26 21:19:25 +00:00

112 lines
2.4 KiB
Groff

.\"
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd September 28, 1998
.Dt BRIDGE 4
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm bridge
.Nd bridging support
.Sh DESCRIPTION
Starting from version 2.2.8,
.Fx
supports bridging on Ethernet-type
interfaces.
This is enabled by including the following line in the kernel configuration
file:
.Pp
.Dl "options BRIDGE"
.Pp
Runtime operation of the bridge is controlled by several
.Xr sysctl 8
variables.
The
.Va net.link.ether.bridge
variable can be set to
.Li 1
to enable bridging, or set to
.Li 0
to disable it.
.Pp
The
.Va net.link.ether.bridge_ipfw
.Xr sysctl 8
variable can be set to
.Li 1
to enable
.Xr ipfw 8
filtering on bridged packets.
Note that
.Xr ipfw 8
rules only apply
to IP packets.
Non-IP packets are subject to the default
.Xr ipfw 8
rule
.Pq number 65535
which must be an
.Ar allow
rule if ARP and other non-IP packets need to flow through the
bridge.
.Pp
The bridge configuration is controlled by the
.Va net.link.ether.bridge_cfg
.Xr sysctl 8
variable.
It consists of a comma-separated list of
.Ar interface : Ns Ar cluster
pairs, where all interfaces with the same
.Ar cluster
number will
be bridged together.
.Pp
Another
.Xr sysctl 8
variable reinitializes the bridge; this is required if bridged
configurations include loadable interfaces.
After loading new interface drivers, setting the
.Va net.link.ether.bridge_refresh
variable to
.Li 1
will cause the bridge to reinitialize itself.
.Sh EXAMPLES
The following command will cause the
.Li ep0
and
.Li fxp0
interfaces to be bridged together, and the
.Li fxp1
and
.Li de0
interfaces to be bridged together:
.Pp
.Dl "sysctl -w net.link.ether.bridge_cfg ep0:0,fxp0:0,fxp1:1,de0:1"
.Sh BUGS
Care must be taken not to construct loops in the bridge topology.
The kernel supports only a primitive form of loop detection, by disabling
some interfaces when a loop is detected.
No support for a daemon running the
spanning tree algorithm is currently provided.
.Pp
With bridging active, interfaces are in promiscuous mode,
thus causing some load on the system to receive and filter
out undesired traffic.
.Pp
Extended functionality to enable bridging selectively on clusters
of interfaces is still in the works.
.Pp
Interfaces that cannot be put into promiscuous mode or that don't
support sending packets with arbitrary Ethernet source addresses
are not compatible with bridging.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ip 4 ,
.Xr ng_bridge 4 ,
.Xr ipfw 8 ,
.Xr sysctl 8
.Sh HISTORY
.Nm
bridging was introduced in
.Fx 2.2.8
by
.An Luigi Rizzo Aq luigi@iet.unipi.it .