Ubuntu bridge configuration

brctl in bridge-utils

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#aptitude install bridge-utils

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#brctl addbr br0

- creating a bridge interface

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#ip addr show

- display the enumeration of ethernet devices

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#brctl addif br0 eth0 eth1

- add eth0 and eth1 to bridge br0

The equivalent configuration in /etc/network/interfaces

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 # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
 # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

 # The loopback network interface
 auto lo br0
 iface lo inet loopback

 # Set up interfaces manually, avoiding conflicts with, e.g., network manager
 iface eth0 inet manual

 iface eth1 inet manual

 # Bridge setup
 iface br0 inet dhcp
        bridge_ports eth0 eth1

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#ifup br0

- bring up the bridge

It is possible to set a static IP for a bridge in /etc/network/interfaces

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 iface br0 inet static
        bridge_ports eth0 eth1
        address 192.168.1.2
        broadcast 192.168.1.255
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        gateway 192.168.1.1

Bridge configuration variables are in
/etc/sysctl.conf
/etc/sysctl.d/bridge_local.conf

procps init script will loading the configurations.  For newer Debian releases, procps needs to be started in /etc/rc.local

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# Load kernel variables from /etc/sysctl.d
/etc/init.d/procps restart

Setup link layer filtering rules
Need package ebtables

For supporting link aggregation (LACP), ifenslave is the required package.

references:
https://wiki.debian.org/BridgeNetworkConnections
http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Networking
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkConnectionBridge
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ntop