Re: Feature requests / inquiries.

From: Max Laier (max_at_love2party.net)
Date: 08/29/05

  • Next message: Brooks Davis: "Re: Feature requests / inquiries." 
    To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 20:09:43 +0200

    On Monday 29 August 2005 19:50, Brooks Davis wrote:
    > On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 05:56:25PM +0200, Bart Van Kerckhove wrote:
    > > Dear Sirs / Fellow Freebsd Freaks,
    > >
    > > I've been using FreeBSD for a while now as a routing/firewalling
    > > platform, but recent developments in our network infrastructure confront
    > > me with some lack of features in the IPstack.
    > > In a nutshell, i'm looking for support for (in order of importance to me)
    > > : (r)STP, ECMP, and LACP.
    > >
    > > For STP, i have found a patch that contained a port from netbsd code of
    > > if_bridge ; but i'm way too insecure about running this on a production
    > > system.
    > > For ECMP, the only thing i found out was that there used to be a patchset
    > > that did something like it, but went defunct after 4.8.
    > > LACP: no idea at all, sorry :)
    > >
    > > As these are features we'll be using some time soon now, i can say we
    > > _need_ them. I have even seriously considered moving to NetBSD; the lack
    > > of NIC polling support for the intel chipsets i'm using is holding me
    > > back at the moment.
    > > I do not want to move over to linux, for various reasons.
    > > So I figured perhaps some of the freebsd community is also interested in
    > > these features, and I might as well sponsor (part of?) its development.
    > > Are there any persons interested in developing these features, or do they
    > > already exist and am I just plain ignorant (forgive me if that is the
    > > case). Please note that i'm not interested in the netgraph approach, as
    > > that's (imho) just a hack around it, and it's not functioning with for
    > > example gnu/zebra et all.
    > >
    > > I am looking for short- and long-term solutions, anything that's
    > > developed trough sponsoring i'd be happy to contribute to the main tree.
    > > As this would be the first time we actually ask for a specific feature in
    > > any OSS software, I could be way off the scale with the figures i had in
    > > mind. This would be about 200 to 400 euro per feature, the more important
    > > ones like STP and ECMP are totally open to discussion.
    > >
    > > Any takers? Any enlightenment? Thanks for helping out in advance ;)
    >
    > if_bridge has been imported into FreeBSD 6.0 and I believe will be
    > merged to 5.x before 5.5.

    A candidate MFC patchset is at:
    http://people.freebsd.org/~thompsa/if_bridge-5stable.diff and is believed to
    be production quality (judging from the reports for RELENG_6 so far). There
    might be minor problems and/or yet undiscovered problems, but only testing
    gets it there. Andrew is certainly thankful for any feedback!

    > I can't speak for ECMP.
    >
    > LACP is supported by ng_fec. The fact that you don't like it is a
    > seperate issue. FWIW, ng_fec only uses netgraph for configuration.
    > It's not really a netgraph node. I'd personally like to see OpenBSD's
    > if_trunk imported and LACP added, but I certainly don't have time.

    It's certainly a good idea to look at if_trunk. I don't have hardware to
    build a testbed, but I belive there are people out there who do and also have
    the skills to make it happen. The main problem is: Whoever does this must
    have (physical) access to a reasonable testbed and free time while there
    (i.e. agreement with employer etc) 

    -- 
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  • Next message: Brooks Davis: "Re: Feature requests / inquiries."

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