Re: [PATCH 1/3] bridge: preserve random init MAC address
From: Luis R. Rodriguez <hidden>
Date: 2014-03-20 02:05:44
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bridge, kvm, lkml
On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 08:10:56PM -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 20:15:25 -0700 "Luis R. Rodriguez" [off-list ref] wrote:quoted
As it is now if you add create a bridge it gets started with a random MAC address and if you then add a net_device as a slave but later kick it out you end up with a zero MAC address. Instead preserve the original random MAC address and use it.What is supposed to happen is that the recalculate chooses the lowest MAC address of the slaves. If there are no slaves it might as well just calculate a new random value. There is not great merit in preserving the original defunct address. Or something like this--- a/net/bridge/br_stp_if.c 2014-02-12 08:21:56.733857356 -0800 +++ b/net/bridge/br_stp_if.c 2014-03-18 20:09:09.334388826 -0700@@ -235,6 +235,9 @@ bool br_stp_recalculate_bridge_id(struct addr = p->dev->dev_addr; } + + if (addr == br_mac_zero) + return false; /* keep original address */ if (ether_addr_equal(br->bridge_id.addr, addr)) return false; /* no change */that just keeps the old value.
The old value could be a port which got root blocked, I think it can be confusing to see that happen. Either way feel free to make the call, I'll provide more details below on perhaps one reason to keep the original MAC address.
The bridge is in a meaningless state when there are no ports,
Some virtualization topologies may want a backend with no link (or perhaps one which is dynamic, with the option to have none) to the internet but just a bridge so guests sharing the bridge can talk to each other. In this case bridging can be used only to link the batch of guests. In this case the bridge simply acts as a switch, but also can be used as the interface for DHCP, for example. In such a case the guests will be doing ARP to get to the DHCP server. There's a flurry of ways one can try to get all this meshed together including enablign an ARP proxy but I'm looking at ways to optimize this further -- but I'd like to address the current usage cases first.
and when the first port is added back it will be used as the new bridge id.
Sure. Let me know how you think we should proceed with this patch based on the above. Luis
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