Ubuntu, VLANs and Bridges

Bridge and VLAN support has improved dramatically under Ubuntu and probably Debian as well since I last looked into it. once upon a time to create a bridge linked to a VLAN interface you would have to do horrible things like.

auto eth0
ifconfig eth0 inet manual
    pre-up /sbin/vconfig set_name_type VLAN_PLUS_VID_NO_PAD || true

auto vlan7
iface vlan7 inet manual
    pre-up /sbin/vconfig add eth0 7 || true
    post-down /sbin/vconfig rem vlan7 || true

auto br0
    pre-up brctl addbr br0
    pre-up brctl addif br0 vlan7
    post-down brctl delbr br0
    address 10.38.38.1
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    network 10.38.38.0
    broadcast 10.38.38.255

Now the bridge-utils and vlan packages provide hooks into the ifup and ifdown commands so you can simply do

auto br-vlan4
iface br-vlan4 inet static
    address 10.38.38.1
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    network 10.38.38.0
    broadcast 10.38.38.255
    vlan-raw-device eth1
    bridge_ports vlan4
    bridge_maxwait 0
    bridge_fd 0
    bridge_stp off

Which will automagically

  • Bring up eth1
  • Create vlan4 bound to the eth1 interface
  • Bring up vlan4
  • Create the br0 with vlan4 attached
  • Give eth1 the same HW address as br0
  • Bring up br0 with the IP address

Nifty!