Bridge
This document describes how to configure a network bridge interface in Alpine Linux.
Installation
Install the bridge tools that configure bridge:
# apk add bridge
Configuration
Bridging is then configured in /etc/network/interfaces with the bridge-ports keyword.
In this example the address 192.168.0.1/24 is used.
Contents of /etc/network/interfaces
You can set the various options with these keywords:
- bridge-ports
- Set bridge ports (ethX) or none for no physical interfaces
- bridge-aging
- Set ageing time
- bridge-fd
- Set bridge forward delay
- bridge-hello
- Set hello time
- bridge-maxage
- Set bridge max message age
- bridge-pathcost
- Set path cost
- bridge-portprio
- Set port priority
- bridge-bridgeprio
- Set bridge priority
- bridge-stp
- STP on/off
Using pre-up/post-down
If you want be able to control the bridge interfaces individually, you need to use pre-up/post-down hooks. An example /etc/network/interfaces file follows:
Contents of /etc/network/interfaces
Now, create br0
with the command:
# ifup br0
One can add/remove individual interfaces to the bridge with ifup eth0
and ifdown eth0
commands.
Bridging for a Xen dom0
Bridging in a dom0 is a bit specific as it consists in bridging a real interface (i.e. ethX) with a virtual interface (i.e. vifX.Y). At bridge creation time, the virtual interface does not exist and will be added by the Xen toolstack when a domU is booting (see Xen documentation on how to link the virtual interface to the correct bridge).
Particulars:
- the bridge consists of a single physical interface
- the physical interface does not have an IP and is configured manually
- the bridge will have the IP address and will be auto, resulting in bringing up the physical interface
This translates to a sample config /etc/network/interfaces file as follows:
Contents of /etc/network/interfaces
After the domU OS is started, the virtual interface wil be added and the working bridge can be checked with the commands:
# brctl show # ifconfig -a
Bridging for KVM
An example /etc/network/interfaces file for KVM is given below:
Contents of /etc/network/interfaces
Bridging for QEMU
Ensure that the /etc/network/interfaces file is as follows:
Contents of /etc/network/interfaces
To enable DHCP and get QEMU to use the bridge we've created Install the bridge package.
- Load kernel modules needed for KVM bridging:
# printf 'tun\ntap\n' >> /etc/modules
- Allow Qemu to use our bridge.
# echo 'allow br0' > /etc/qemu/bridge.conf
- Write some sysctl knobs to allow bridging to work by creating a file etc/sysctl.d/bridging.conf as follows:
Contents of /etc/sysctl.d/bridging.conf
# Enable bridge forwarding. net.ipv4.conf.br0_bc_forwarding=1 # Ignore iptables on bridge interfaces. net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables=0 - Apply sysctl config edits.
# sysctl -p
After a reboot, you can use the bridge with a qcow2 image named felix-pojtigners-theia.qcow2 as follows:
$ qemu-system-x86_64 -m 4096 -accel kvm -net nic -net bridge,br=br0 -boot d -drive format=qcow2,file=felix-pojtingers-theia.qcow2
If you don't get a DHCP response for the guest machine (assuming you have a DHCP server running on the physical network that eth0 is connected to), you can debug with tshark
command from tshark package as follows:
# tshark -i eth0 -Y "bootp.option.type == 53"
Setting MTU
It can be a bit tricky to set the MTU on the bridge and child interfaces. That applies to both the bridge-utils and bridge packages.
The below is tested (10g ports only used as a bridge and not connected to host. you can work from there and make more complex/capable setups. don't forget to consider OVS instead)
Contents of /etc/network/interfaces
So we have a three stage process:
- Bring up member interfaces
- Set up bridge, first run all pre-up commands, setting the MTU of the members
- Once bridge is up, set its own mtu
Using brctl
![]() Reason:Package bridge uses |
Bridges can be managed manually with the brctl
command from the bridge-utils package.
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 bridge interface br0:
# brctl addbr br0
To add interface eth0 and eth1 to br0:
# brctl addif br0 eth0 # brctl addif br0 eth1
Note: You need to set the link status to up on the added interfaces:
# ip link set dev eth0 up # ip link set dev eth1 up
Troubleshooting
Script to allow dhcp over iptables
If the pre-up/post-down doesn't work the following approach can be taken to allow dhcp over iptables. The below script is based on the this page.
- Create a startup script /etc/local.d/iptables_dhcp_kvm.start as follows:
Contents of /etc/local.d/iptables_dhcp_kvm.start
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/bridge/bridge-nf-call-arptables echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/bridge/bridge-nf-call-iptables echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/bridge/bridge-nf-call-ip6tables iptables -A FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN -j TCPMSS --clamp-mss-to-pmtu exit 0 - Ensure that /etc/local.d/iptables_dhcp_kvm.start script is executable.
# chmod a+x /etc/local.d/iptables_dhcp_kvm.start
- Ensure that scripts placed in /etc/local.d starts on boot:
# rc-update add local