if_gif/if_bridge problem

[Boris Kochergin]

Eugene Grosbein wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 09:57:48AM -0500, Boris Kochergin wrote:
>
>   
>> bridge0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 
>> 1500
>>        ether 3e:7f:e8:ef:f6:a4
>>        inet 192.168.0.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
>>        id 00:00:00:00:00:00 priority 32768 hellotime 2 fwddelay 15
>>        maxage 20 holdcnt 6 proto rstp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
>>        root id 00:00:00:00:00:00 priority 32768 ifcost 0 port 0
>>        member: gif6 flags=143<LEARNING,DISCOVER,AUTOEDGE,AUTOPTP>
>>     
>
> [skip]
>
>   
>> So, the tunnels and bridges appear to be sending the traffic around 
>> properly, but the concentrator machine isn't replying to ARP requests 
>> for its bridge0 interface's IP. This is where I'm stuck. Any help is 
>> appreciated.
>>     
>
> The problem is that if_bridge(4) won't work this way - with only one gif-member
> without patching. I've faced this recently and debugged it in detail.
> Then I've produced a patch and now I run it over a month in production
> without a problem:
>
> ftp://www.kuzbass.ru/pub/freebsd/lagg-0.1.tgz
>
> Description inside, in Russian. In short: if_gif(4) no more kills
> ethernet frames returned by if_bridge(4) as designated for upper levels
> of TCP/IP stack but really passes them there. If the patched system
> does not have EtherIP-tunnels then the patch affects nothing,
> so it's safe to apply it. Also, you need not to reboot the system
> if you load if_gif/if_bridge as modules, just rebuld and reload these.
>
> The patch applies to all of 6.2, 6.3-PRERELEASE and 7.0-PRERELEASE,
> and works (tested).
>
> My task was a bit more complex so the patch touches if_lagg(4) too
> but you need not use lagg(4) if you do not need it. The patch just
> contains the solution for your problem too.
>
> You can read detailed discussion in Russian there:
> http://groups.google.com/group/fido7.ru.unix.bsd/browse_thread/thread/d6787b865515a66a/488d738afc265b19
>
> Eugene Grosbein
>   

I just tested it on my 7.0-RC1 setup and it did indeed take care of the 
problem. Thank you very much!

-Boris