if_bridge: Assigning IP Address to Bridge Interface

[Senandung Mendonan]

Hi,
I'm running the latest FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE-p3 on the following piece of
hardware:-
IBM xSeries 336
- 1 add-on PCI dual-port NIC (IBM Netxtreme Dualpt Ethernet adapter)
matching the Broadcom BCM5704C Dual Gigabit Ethernet chipset (detected
as bge0 and bge1)
- 2 internal built-in NICs matching the Broadcom BCM5721 Gigabit
Ethernet chipset. (detected as bge2 and bge3)

I run bridging on bge2 and bge3 as follows:-

ROUTER o--o C650x o----- bge2 + bge3 -----o C3750G (SERVERS)

*C650x = Cisco Catalyst C650x core switch
*C3750G = Cisco Catalyst C3750G distribution switch

In /etc/rc.conf:-
ifconfig_bge2="up"
ifconfig_bge3="up"
cloned_interfaces="bridge0"
ifconfig_bridge0="addm bge2 addm bge3 up"

The bridge works OK:-

bridge0: flags=8043<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        ether ac:de:48:b0:96:99
        priority 32768 hellotime 2 fwddelay 15 maxage 20
        member: bge3 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
        member: bge2 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>

My servers can reach the router via the server, and tcpdump on bridge0
confirms traffic being passed through OK.

I had earlier planned to assign IP address to either bge0 or bge1 for
SSH remote access and running other services, but due to another
problem (on a separate thread) I am left with bge2 and bge3 as the only
usable interfaces. So I tried to assign IP on the bridge interface as
follows:-

$ ifconfig bridge0 inet 192.168.1.18 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast
192.168.1.255
(192.168.1.0/24 is the subnet active on the particular VLAN I'm on in
the Cisco switchports).

The IP got assigned OK in bridge0, I can ping to it from inside the
box. However when I tried to ping my other servers on bge3 side as well
as the router on bge2 side, I get request timed out, i.e. the IP
address is not reachable.

Would appreciate any assistance.. thanks. :)

--mendonan
"Yang mimpikan secangkir kopi panas dengan selimut.."
 (Dreaming of a cup of hot coffee, and a blanket..")