It is sometimes useful to divide a network, such as an Ethernet segment, into network segments without having to create IP subnets and use a router to connect the segments together. A device that connects two networks together in this fashion is called a “bridge”.
A bridge works by learning the MAC addresses of the devices on each of its network interfaces. It forwards traffic between networks only when the source and destination MAC addresses are on different networks. In many respects, a bridge is like an Ethernet switch with very few ports. A FreeBSD system with multiple network interfaces can be configured to act as a bridge.
Bridging can be useful in the following situations:
The basic operation of a bridge is to join two or more network segments. There are many reasons to use a host-based bridge instead of networking equipment, such as cabling constraints or firewalling. A bridge can also connect a wireless interface running in hostap mode to a wired network and act as an access point.
A bridge can be used when firewall functionality is needed without routing or Network Address Translation (NAT).
An example is a small company that is connected via DSL or ISDN to an ISP. There are thirteen public IP addresses from the ISP and ten computers on the network. In this situation, using a router-based firewall is difficult because of subnetting issues. A bridge-based firewall can be configured without any IP addressing issues.
A bridge can join two network segments in order to inspect all Ethernet frames that pass between them using bpf(4) and tcpdump(1) on the bridge interface or by sending a copy of all frames out an additional interface known as a span port.
Two Ethernet networks can be joined across an IP link by bridging the networks to an EtherIP tunnel or a tap(4) based solution such as OpenVPN.
A network can be connected together with multiple links and use the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) to block redundant paths.
This section describes how to configure a FreeBSD system as a bridge using if_bridge(4). A netgraph bridging driver is also available, and is described in ng_bridge(4).
Packet filtering can be used with any firewall package that hooks into the pfil(9) framework. The bridge can be used as a traffic shaper with altq(4) or dummynet(4).
In FreeBSD, if_bridge(4) is a kernel module which is
automatically loaded by ifconfig(8) when creating a
bridge interface. It is also possible to compile bridge
support into a custom kernel by adding
device if_bridge to the custom kernel
configuration file.
The bridge is created using interface cloning. To create the bridge interface:
#ifconfig bridge createbridge0#ifconfig bridge0bridge0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500 ether 96:3d:4b:f1:79:7a id 00:00:00:00:00:00 priority 32768 hellotime 2 fwddelay 15 maxage 20 holdcnt 6 proto rstp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200 root id 00:00:00:00:00:00 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
When a bridge interface is created, it is automatically
assigned a randomly generated Ethernet address. The
maxaddr and timeout
parameters control how many MAC addresses
the bridge will keep in its forwarding table and how many
seconds before each entry is removed after it is last seen.
The other parameters control how STP
operates.
Next, specify which network interfaces to add as members of the bridge. For the bridge to forward packets, all member interfaces and the bridge need to be up:
#ifconfig bridge0 addm fxp0 addm fxp1 up#ifconfig fxp0 up#ifconfig fxp1 up
The bridge can now forward Ethernet frames between
fxp0 and fxp1. Add
the following lines to /etc/rc.conf so
the bridge is created at startup:
cloned_interfaces="bridge0" ifconfig_bridge0="addm fxp0 addm fxp1 up" ifconfig_fxp0="up" ifconfig_fxp1="up"
If the bridge host needs an IP address, set it on the bridge interface, not on the member interfaces. The address can be set statically or via DHCP. This example sets a static IP address:
#ifconfig bridge0 inet 192.168.0.1/24
It is also possible to assign an IPv6
address to a bridge interface. To make the changes permanent,
add the addressing information to
/etc/rc.conf.
When packet filtering is enabled, bridged packets will pass through the filter inbound on the originating interface on the bridge interface, and outbound on the appropriate interfaces. Either stage can be disabled. When direction of the packet flow is important, it is best to firewall on the member interfaces rather than the bridge itself.
The bridge has several configurable settings for passing non-IP and IP packets, and layer2 firewalling with ipfw(8). See if_bridge(4) for more information.
For an Ethernet network to function properly, only one active path can exist between two devices. The STP protocol detects loops and puts redundant links into a blocked state. Should one of the active links fail, STP calculates a different tree and enables one of the blocked paths to restore connectivity to all points in the network.
The Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP or 802.1w) provides backwards compatibility with legacy STP. RSTP provides faster convergence and exchanges information with neighboring switches to quickly transition to forwarding mode without creating loops. FreeBSD supports RSTP and STP as operating modes, with RSTP being the default mode.
STP can be enabled on member interfaces
using ifconfig(8). For a bridge with
fxp0 and fxp1 as the
current interfaces, enable STP with:
#ifconfig bridge0 stp fxp0 stp fxp1bridge0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500 ether d6:cf:d5:a0:94:6d id 00:01:02:4b:d4:50 priority 32768 hellotime 2 fwddelay 15 maxage 20 holdcnt 6 proto rstp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200 root id 00:01:02:4b:d4:50 priority 32768 ifcost 0 port 0 member: fxp0 flags=1c7<LEARNING,DISCOVER,STP,AUTOEDGE,PTP,AUTOPTP> port 3 priority 128 path cost 200000 proto rstp role designated state forwarding member: fxp1 flags=1c7<LEARNING,DISCOVER,STP,AUTOEDGE,PTP,AUTOPTP> port 4 priority 128 path cost 200000 proto rstp role designated state forwarding
This bridge has a spanning tree ID of
00:01:02:4b:d4:50 and a priority of
32768. As the root id
is the same, it indicates that this is the root bridge for the
tree.
Another bridge on the network also has STP enabled:
bridge0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
ether 96:3d:4b:f1:79:7a
id 00:13:d4:9a:06:7a priority 32768 hellotime 2 fwddelay 15
maxage 20 holdcnt 6 proto rstp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
root id 00:01:02:4b:d4:50 priority 32768 ifcost 400000 port 4
member: fxp0 flags=1c7<LEARNING,DISCOVER,STP,AUTOEDGE,PTP,AUTOPTP>
port 4 priority 128 path cost 200000 proto rstp
role root state forwarding
member: fxp1 flags=1c7<LEARNING,DISCOVER,STP,AUTOEDGE,PTP,AUTOPTP>
port 5 priority 128 path cost 200000 proto rstp
role designated state forwardingThe line root id 00:01:02:4b:d4:50 priority 32768
ifcost 400000 port 4 shows that the root bridge is
00:01:02:4b:d4:50 and has a path cost of
400000 from this bridge. The path to the
root bridge is via port 4 which is
fxp0.
Several ifconfig parameters are unique
to bridge interfaces. This section summarizes some common
uses for these parameters. The complete list of available
parameters is described in ifconfig(8).
A private interface does not forward any traffic to any other port that is also designated as a private interface. The traffic is blocked unconditionally so no Ethernet frames will be forwarded, including ARP packets. If traffic needs to be selectively blocked, a firewall should be used instead.
A span port transmits a copy of every Ethernet frame
received by the bridge. The number of span ports
configured on a bridge is unlimited, but if an
interface is designated as a span port, it cannot also
be used as a regular bridge port. This is most useful
for snooping a bridged network passively on another host
connected to one of the span ports of the bridge. For
example, to send a copy of all frames out the interface
named fxp4:
#ifconfig bridge0 span fxp4
If a bridge member interface is marked as sticky, dynamically learned address entries are treated at static entries in the forwarding cache. Sticky entries are never aged out of the cache or replaced, even if the address is seen on a different interface. This gives the benefit of static address entries without the need to pre-populate the forwarding table. Clients learned on a particular segment of the bridge can not roam to another segment.
An example of using sticky addresses is to combine
the bridge with VLANs in order to
isolate customer networks without wasting
IP address space. Consider that
CustomerA
is on vlan100, CustomerB is on
vlan101, and the bridge has the
address 192.168.0.1:
#ifconfig bridge0 addm vlan100 sticky vlan100 addm vlan101 sticky vlan101#ifconfig bridge0 inet 192.168.0.1/24
In this example, both clients see 192.168.0.1 as their
default gateway. Since the bridge cache is sticky, one
host can not spoof the MAC address of
the other customer in order to intercept their
traffic.
Any communication between the VLANs can be blocked using a firewall or, as seen in this example, private interfaces:
#ifconfig bridge0 private vlan100 private vlan101
The customers are completely isolated from each
other and the full /24 address range can be
allocated without subnetting.
The number of unique source MAC addresses behind an interface can be limited. Once the limit is reached, packets with unknown source addresses are dropped until an existing host cache entry expires or is removed.
The following example sets the maximum number of
Ethernet devices for CustomerA on
vlan100 to 10:
#ifconfig bridge0 ifmaxaddr vlan100 10
Bridge interfaces also support monitor mode, where the packets are discarded after bpf(4) processing and are not processed or forwarded further. This can be used to multiplex the input of two or more interfaces into a single bpf(4) stream. This is useful for reconstructing the traffic for network taps that transmit the RX/TX signals out through two separate interfaces. For example, to read the input from four network interfaces as one stream:
#ifconfig bridge0 addm fxp0 addm fxp1 addm fxp2 addm fxp3 monitor up#tcpdump -i bridge0
The bridge interface and STP parameters can be monitored via bsnmpd(1) which is included in the FreeBSD base system. The exported bridge MIBs conform to IETF standards so any SNMP client or monitoring package can be used to retrieve the data.
To enable monitoring on the bridge, uncomment this line in
/etc/snmp.config by removing the
beginning # symbol:
begemotSnmpdModulePath."bridge" = "/usr/lib/snmp_bridge.so"
Other configuration settings, such as community names and
access lists, may need to be modified in this file. See
bsnmpd(1) and snmp_bridge(3) for more information.
Once these edits are saved, add this line to
/etc/rc.conf:
bsnmpd_enable="YES"
Then, start bsnmpd(1):
#service bsnmpd start
The following examples use the
Net-SNMP software
(net-mgmt/net-snmp) to query a bridge
from a client system. The
net-mgmt/bsnmptools port can also be used.
From the SNMP client which is running
Net-SNMP, add the following lines
to $HOME/.snmp/snmp.conf in order to
import the bridge MIB definitions:
mibdirs +/usr/share/snmp/mibs mibs +BRIDGE-MIB:RSTP-MIB:BEGEMOT-MIB:BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB
To monitor a single bridge using the IETF BRIDGE-MIB (RFC4188):
%snmpwalk -v 2c -c public bridge1.example.com mib-2.dot1dBridgeBRIDGE-MIB::dot1dBaseBridgeAddress.0 = STRING: 66:fb:9b:6e:5c:44 BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dBaseNumPorts.0 = INTEGER: 1 ports BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpTimeSinceTopologyChange.0 = Timeticks: (189959) 0:31:39.59 centi-seconds BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpTopChanges.0 = Counter32: 2 BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpDesignatedRoot.0 = Hex-STRING: 80 00 00 01 02 4B D4 50 ... BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpPortState.3 = INTEGER: forwarding(5) BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpPortEnable.3 = INTEGER: enabled(1) BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpPortPathCost.3 = INTEGER: 200000 BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpPortDesignatedRoot.3 = Hex-STRING: 80 00 00 01 02 4B D4 50 BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpPortDesignatedCost.3 = INTEGER: 0 BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpPortDesignatedBridge.3 = Hex-STRING: 80 00 00 01 02 4B D4 50 BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpPortDesignatedPort.3 = Hex-STRING: 03 80 BRIDGE-MIB::dot1dStpPortForwardTransitions.3 = Counter32: 1 RSTP-MIB::dot1dStpVersion.0 = INTEGER: rstp(2)
The dot1dStpTopChanges.0 value is two,
indicating that the STP bridge topology has
changed twice. A topology change means that one or more links
in the network have changed or failed and a new tree has been
calculated. The
dot1dStpTimeSinceTopologyChange.0 value
will show when this happened.
To monitor multiple bridge interfaces, the private BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB can be used:
%snmpwalk -v 2c -c public bridge1.example.comenterprises.fokus.begemot.begemotBridge BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeBaseName."bridge0" = STRING: bridge0 BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeBaseName."bridge2" = STRING: bridge2 BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeBaseAddress."bridge0" = STRING: e:ce:3b:5a:9e:13 BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeBaseAddress."bridge2" = STRING: 12:5e:4d:74:d:fc BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeBaseNumPorts."bridge0" = INTEGER: 1 BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeBaseNumPorts."bridge2" = INTEGER: 1 ... BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeStpTimeSinceTopologyChange."bridge0" = Timeticks: (116927) 0:19:29.27 centi-seconds BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeStpTimeSinceTopologyChange."bridge2" = Timeticks: (82773) 0:13:47.73 centi-seconds BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeStpTopChanges."bridge0" = Counter32: 1 BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeStpTopChanges."bridge2" = Counter32: 1 BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeStpDesignatedRoot."bridge0" = Hex-STRING: 80 00 00 40 95 30 5E 31 BEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeStpDesignatedRoot."bridge2" = Hex-STRING: 80 00 00 50 8B B8 C6 A9
To change the bridge interface being monitored via the
mib-2.dot1dBridge subtree:
%snmpset -v 2c -c private bridge1.example.comBEGEMOT-BRIDGE-MIB::begemotBridgeDefaultBridgeIf.0 s bridge2
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