Feature requests / inquiries.

[Brooks Davis]

On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 08:09:43PM +0200, Max Laier wrote:
> On Monday 29 August 2005 19:50, Brooks Davis wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 05:56:25PM +0200, Bart Van Kerckhove wrote:
> > > Dear Sirs / Fellow Freebsd Freaks,
> > >
> > > I've been using FreeBSD for a while now as a routing/firewalling
> > > platform, but recent developments in our network infrastructure confront
> > > me with some lack of features in the IPstack.
> > > In a nutshell, i'm looking for support for (in order of importance to me)
> > > : (r)STP, ECMP, and LACP.
> > >
> > > For STP, i have found a patch that contained a port from netbsd code of
> > > if_bridge ; but i'm way too insecure about running this on a production
> > > system.
> > > For ECMP, the only thing i found out was that there used to be a patchset
> > > that did something like it, but went defunct after 4.8.
> > > LACP: no idea at all, sorry :)
> > >
> > > As these are features we'll be using some time soon now, i can say we
> > > _need_ them. I have even seriously considered moving to NetBSD; the lack
> > > of NIC polling support for the intel chipsets i'm using is holding me
> > > back at the moment.
> > > I do not want to move over to linux, for various reasons.
> > > So I figured perhaps some of the freebsd community is also interested in
> > > these features, and I might as well sponsor (part of?) its development.
> > > Are there any persons interested in developing these features, or do they
> > > already exist and am I just plain ignorant (forgive me if that is the
> > > case). Please note that i'm not interested in the netgraph approach, as
> > > that's (imho) just a hack around it, and it's not functioning with for
> > > example gnu/zebra et all.
> > >
> > > I am looking for short- and long-term solutions, anything that's
> > > developed trough sponsoring i'd be happy to contribute to the main tree.
> > > As this would be the first time we actually ask for a specific feature in
> > > any OSS software, I could be way off the scale with the figures i had in
> > > mind. This would be about 200 to 400 euro per feature, the more important
> > > ones like STP and ECMP are totally open to discussion.
> > >
> > > Any takers? Any enlightenment? Thanks for helping out in advance ;)
> >
> > if_bridge has been imported into FreeBSD 6.0 and I believe will be
> > merged to 5.x before 5.5.
> 
> A candidate MFC patchset is at: 
> http://people.freebsd.org/~thompsa/if_bridge-5stable.diff and is believed to 
> be production quality (judging from the reports for RELENG_6 so far).  There 
> might be minor problems and/or yet undiscovered problems, but only testing 
> gets it there.  Andrew is certainly thankful for any feedback!
> 
> > I can't speak for ECMP.
> >
> > LACP is supported by ng_fec.  The fact that you don't like it is a
> > seperate issue.  FWIW, ng_fec only uses netgraph for configuration.
> > It's not really a netgraph node.  I'd personally like to see OpenBSD's
> > if_trunk imported and LACP added, but I certainly don't have time.
> 
> It's certainly a good idea to look at if_trunk.  I don't have hardware to 
> build a testbed, but I belive there are people out there who do and also have 
> the skills to make it happen.  The main problem is: Whoever does this must 
> have (physical) access to a reasonable testbed and free time while there 
> (i.e. agreement with employer etc)

I've got the equipment access, but lack the time.  Untangling the mess
in the VLAN and EtherChannel support has been on my like for a couple
years now, but I have know idea when or if I'll get to it.  FWIW, a
Catalyst 2950 series switch will do EtherChannel and they appear to be
available on e-bay for under $500 if someone wants to work on this.

-- Brooks

-- 
Any statement of the form "X is the one, true Y" is FALSE.
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