Re: [Bridge] rstpd & 2.4

[Rodolfo Giometti <giometti@enneenne.com>]

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 08:38:15AM -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:26:55 +0200
> Rodolfo Giometti <giometti@enneenne.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Jul 02, 2010 at 09:21:48AM -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > 
> > > The 2.4 kernel is missing all the hooks to provide user level STP.
> > > The startup is not the big issue, the real problem is that the
> > > kernel doesn't have hooks to control port state from user space,
> > > and the spanning tree packets may not be visible to user space
> > > application either.
> > > 
> > > Sigh, 2.4 is at least 5 years old by now.
> > 
> > Hello, I'm going to start backport of rstpd to kernel 2.4 series and
> > I'd like having some advices from you.
> > 
> > Regarding the bridge controls I can add to the current sysfs interface
> > the old ioctl interface as the old bridge-utils did. Do you think I
> > can contribute to the rstpd code in order to support such interface or
> > you have no interest in doing it?
> 
> I won't put in 2.6 code.  If you wan to put in 2.4, contact
> the 2.4 kernel maintainer.

Regarding my modifications I just refer to the rstpd code, I'm going
to store kernel patches on my site only, so no kernel patches at
all. :)

> > The problem of controlling the port state from user space can be
> > resolved by adding the missing netlink commands into the kernel code.
> > 
> > In the end, spanning tree packets may be captured as tcpdump do, is
> > that right?
> 
> That is how I did it since RSTP needs to see ethernet headers.

Ok, thanks.

Ciao,

Rodolfo

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