Bridge

This document describes how to configure a network bridge interface.

Using brctl

Bridges are managed with the 'brctl command.

Usage: brctl COMMAND [BRIDGE [INTERFACE]]

Manage ethernet bridges

Commands:
	show			Show a list of bridges
	addbr BRIDGE		Create BRIDGE
	delbr BRIDGE		Delete BRIDGE
	addif BRIDGE IFACE	Add IFACE to BRIDGE
	delif BRIDGE IFACE	Delete IFACE from BRIDGE
	setageing BRIDGE TIME		Set ageing time
	setfd BRIDGE TIME		Set bridge forward delay
	sethello BRIDGE TIME		Set hello time
	setmaxage BRIDGE TIME		Set max message age
	setpathcost BRIDGE COST		Set path cost
	setportprio BRIDGE PRIO		Set port priority
	setbridgeprio BRIDGE PRIO	Set bridge priority
	stp BRIDGE [1|0]		STP on/off

To manually create a bridge interface br0:

brctl addbr br0

To add interface eth0 and eth1 to the bridge br0:

brctl addif br0 eth0 brctl addif br0 eth1

Note that you need to set the link status to up on the added interfaces.

ip linke set dev eth0 up ip link set dev eth1 up

Configuration file

Bridging is configured in pre-up/up hooks in /etc/network/interfaces. Note that you normally don't assign ip addresses to the bridged interfaces (eth0 and eth1 in our example) but to the bridge itself (br0).

In this example the address 192.168.0.1/24 is used.

auto br0
iface br0 inet static
	pre-up brctl addbr br0
	address 192.168.0.1
	netmask 255.255.255.0
	post-down brctl delbr br0

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet manual
	up ip link set $IFACE up
	up brctl addif br0 $IFACE
	down brctl delif br0 $IFACE
	down ip link set $IFACE down

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet manual
	up ip link set $IFACE up
	up brctl addif br0 $IFACE
	down brctl delif br0 $IFACE
	down ip link set $IFACE down