Re: setting net.link.bridge.member_ifaddrs=0 by default

On Sat, 10 May 2025 at 17:52, Lexi Winter <ivy@freebsd.org> wrote:

> hello,
>
> since commit 0a1294f6c610948d7447ae276df74a6d5269b62e we have a new
> sysctl, net.link.bridge.member_ifaddrs.  when set to 0, this has the
> following effects:
>
> - an interface with an IP address cannot be added to a bridge
>
> - an interface inside a bridge cannot be configured with an IP address
>
> - the system will not consider Ethernet frames addressed to link-level
>   addresses of members to be local traffic
>
> i would like to propose that we set this to 0 by default in 15.0-RELEASE.
>
> my reasoning for this is that having bridge members with an IP address
> assigned does not work, and has never worked, and it's clear from places
> where users ask for support (such as IRC) that many people run into this
> problem and do not understand what they're doing wrong, until someone
> explains that they should not assign an IP address to bridge members.
>

I agree; it's bitten me too many times.




-adrian


>
> so, enabling this by default has clear benefits for usability (and also
> performance) as well as code simplification later when we can remove the
> relevant code, perhaps in 16.0R.
>
> thoughts?
>