From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 17 10:24:01 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9447D16A4CE for ; Sat, 17 Apr 2004 10:24:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [204.156.12.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 46FC143D5A for ; Sat, 17 Apr 2004 10:24:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fledge.watson.org (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i3HHNtkf008876; Sat, 17 Apr 2004 13:23:55 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Received: from localhost (robert@localhost)i3HHNpbl008873; Sat, 17 Apr 2004 13:23:55 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 13:23:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Watson X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Lowell Gilbert In-Reply-To: <44ekqmhh11.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: Julian Elischer cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RFC: ported NetBSD if_bridge X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 17:24:01 -0000 On 17 Apr 2004, Lowell Gilbert wrote: > Julian Elischer writes: > > > On Fri, 16 Apr 2004, Bruce A. Mah wrote: > > > > 1. ng_bridge(4) doesn't do spanning tree. Neither does bridge(4). > > > > WHICH spanning tree? Spanning tree is a generic term.. > > Are you refering to a particular implimentation of something that uses > > spanning tree algorythms? > > They're referring to IEEE 802.1d. This is an important feature for > building large bridged networks. And it's an important part of many ethernet-layer redundancy solutions, since it allows fail-over when one bridging element or graph edge goes offline. It's something we really missed in some research work I was working on to build link layer filters, since it was an easy way to provide basic fail-over in the presence of ethernet link failures (and they happen a lot!) Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects robert@fledge.watson.org Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research