History

net: set and query VEB/VEPA bridge mode via PF_BRIDGE

Hardware switches may support enabling and disabling the loopback switch which puts the device in a VEPA mode defined in the IEEE 802.1Qbg specification. In this mode frames are not switched in the hardware but sent directly to the switch. SR-IOV capable NICs will likely support this mode I am aware of at least two such devices. Also I am told (but don't have any of this hardware available) that there are devices that only support VEPA modes. In these cases it is important at a minimum to be able to query these attributes. This patch adds an additional IFLA_BRIDGE_MODE attribute that can be set and dumped via the PF_BRIDGE:{SET|GET}LINK operations. Also anticipating bridge attributes that may be common for both embedded bridges and software bridges this adds a flags attribute IFLA_BRIDGE_FLAGS currently used to determine if the command or event is being generated to/from an embedded bridge or software bridge. Finally, the event generation is pulled out of the bridge module and into rtnetlink proper. For example using the macvlan driver in VEPA mode on top of an embedded switch requires putting the embedded switch into a VEPA mode to get the expected results. -------- -------- | VEPA | | VEPA | <-- macvlan vepa edge relays -------- -------- | | | | ------------------ | VEPA | <-- embedded switch in NIC ------------------ | | ------------------- | external switch | <-- shiny new physical ------------------- switch with VEPA support A packet sent from the macvlan VEPA at the top could be loopbacked on the embedded switch and never seen by the external switch. So in order for this to work the embedded switch needs to be set in the VEPA state via the above described commands. By making these attributes nested in IFLA_AF_SPEC we allow future extensions to be made as needed.

John Fastabend committed 14 years ago

Commit 2469ffd1 parent e5a55a84 files · +102 −7Browse files

Showing the changes to include/uapi (1 of 4 files). Show all

Unified · Split

include/uapi/linux/if_bridge.h+18−0
@@ -97,5 +97,23 @@ struct __fdb_entry { · 96 unmodified lines
97 __u16 unused;97 __u16 unused;
98};98};
99 99
100/* Bridge Flags */
101#define BRIDGE_FLAGS_MASTER 1 /* Bridge command to/from master */
102#define BRIDGE_FLAGS_SELF 2 /* Bridge command to/from lowerdev */
100 103
104#define BRIDGE_MODE_VEB 0 /* Default loopback mode */
105#define BRIDGE_MODE_VEPA 1 /* 802.1Qbg defined VEPA mode */
106
107/* Bridge management nested attributes
108 * [IFLA_AF_SPEC] = {
109 * [IFLA_BRIDGE_FLAGS]
110 * [IFLA_BRIDGE_MODE]
111 * }
112 */
113enum {
114 IFLA_BRIDGE_FLAGS,
115 IFLA_BRIDGE_MODE,
116 __IFLA_BRIDGE_MAX,
117};
118#define IFLA_BRIDGE_MAX (__IFLA_BRIDGE_MAX - 1)
101#endif /* _UAPI_LINUX_IF_BRIDGE_H */119#endif /* _UAPI_LINUX_IF_BRIDGE_H */