bridge-utils for Debian
-----------------------

From ifupdown 0.6.0 we have a really configurable /etc/network/interfaces so
from now on one can configure almost anything he wants of the bridge using
the Debian standard way of configuring an interface, that is, if you have
ifupdown installed. To be able to do that we are providing a couple of links
to /usr/share/bridge-utils/ifupdown.sh, one from /etc/network/if-pre-up.d
and another from /etc/network/if-post-down.d.

Configuration for bridges is much easier this way. Check the manpage for
bridge-utils-interfaces(5) to learn how to configure a bridge the easy way
using these scripts for ifupdown.

If you are configuring the bridges this way you mustn't include the
interfaces you use as bridge ports on your /etc/network/interfaces
configuration, bridge-utils will take care of configuring the ports for you
if needed, bridge-utils won't touch the ports config at all if not needed,
if you need to set something up do it using a pre-up option on the bridge
interface definition.

Check also the examples if you are planning to hibernate or suspend your
machine as this usually breaks the bridge if the power management utilities
aren't ready to cope with us. I have added examples for hibernate and
pm-utils, if you have other examples or suggestions or need any, contact me.

Using a bridge over bonding interfaces can be difficult, the tested bonding
setups are over active-backup, balance-tlb and 802.3ad bonds. Using other
modes of bonding and a bridge over them will probably not work.

 -- Santiago Garcia Mantinan <manty@debian.org>, Sun, 13 Jan 2008 17:47:16 +0100