From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <4DB540CA.8030903@gmail.com> Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:37:14 +0200 From: =?UTF-8?B?SXJlbmV1c3ogU3pjemXFm25pYWs=?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Bridge] mind-boggling questions List-Id: Linux Ethernet Bridging List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: bridge@lists.linux-foundation.org Hi, I have a few questions on the Linux bridge, and I would appreciate it if someone could answer them. 1. Why does a bridge have a MAC address? A bridge doesn't need a MAC address. I understand that a Linux box might offer more than a regular switch, and for that you need a MAC address. But the services should be provided by a new tap interface added to the bridge. I believe that the bridge should not even be shown by ifconfig. 2. Why does a bridge take the lowest MAC address of the interfaces connected to it? 3. When I send broadcast frames to a bridge interface (etherwake -b -i br0 00:00:00:00:00:00), the frames are received by the interfaces of the bridge. But when I send the frames to one of the interfaces, they are not broadcasted to other interfaces. I though that the bridge interface (br0) behaves the same as an interface added to the bridge, but I was mistaken. What are the differences? Thanks, Irek -- Ireneusz (Irek) Szczesniak http://www.irkos.org