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!