Administering Bridges

In Oracle Solaris, you use the dladm command and the SMF feature to administer bridges. You can use SMF commands to enable, disable, and monitor bridge instances by using the fault-managed resource identifier (FMRI) of the instance, svc:/network/bridge. You can use the dladm command to create or destroy bridges, as well as to assign links to bridges or to remove links from them.

Administering Bridges (Task Map)

The following table points to the tasks that you can use to administer bridges.

How to View Information About Configured Bridges

This procedure explains how to use the dladm show-bridge command with various options to show different kinds of information about configured bridges.

For more information about the dladm show-bridge command options, see the dladm(1M) man page.

1. Become an administrator.

   For more information, see How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.

2. View information about a bridge or all configured bridges.

   • View the list of bridges.

     # dladm show-bridge

   • Show the link-related status for the bridge.

     # dladm show-bridge -l bridge-name

   • Show statistics for the bridge.

     # dladm show-bridge -s bridge-name

     ---

     Note - The names and definitions of the bridge statistics reported are subject to change.

     ---

   • Show link-related statistics for the bridge.

     # dladm show-bridge -ls bridge-name

   • Show kernel forwarding entries for the bridge.

     # dladm show-bridge -f bridge-name

   • Show TRILL information about the bridge.

     # dladm show-bridge -t bridge-name

Example 4-1 Viewing Bridge Information

The following are examples of using the dladm show-bridge command with various options.

• The following command shows information about all bridges that are configured on the system:

  # dladm show-bridge
  BRIDGE       PROTECT ADDRESS           PRIORITY DESROOT
  goldengate   stp     32768/8:0:20:bf:f 32768    8192/0:d0:0:76:14:38
  baybridge    stp     32768/8:0:20:e5:8 32768    8192/0:d0:0:76:14:38

• The following command shows link-related status information for a single bridge instance, tower. To view configured properties, use the dladm show-linkprop command.

  # dladm show-bridge -l tower
  LINK         STATE        UPTIME   DESROOT
  net0         forwarding   117      8192/0:d0:0:76:14:38
  net1         forwarding   117      8192/0:d0:0:76:14:38

• The following command shows statistics for the specified bridge, terabithia:

  # dladm show-bridge -s terabithia
  BRIDGE       DROPS        FORWARDS
  terabithia   0            302

• The following command shows statistics for all of the links on the specified bridge, london:

  # dladm show-bridge -ls london
  LINK         DROPS     RECV      XMIT
  net0         0         360832    31797
  net1         0         322311    356852

• The following command shows kernel forwarding entries for the specified bridge, avignon:

  # dladm show-bridge -f avignon
  DEST              AGE     FLAGS  OUTPUT
  8:0:20:bc:a7:dc   10.860  --     net0
  8:0:20:bf:f9:69   --      L      net0
  8:0:20:c0:20:26   17.420  --     net0
  8:0:20:e5:86:11   --      L      net1

• The following command shows TRILL information about the specified bridge, key:

  # dladm show-bridge -t key
  NICK FLAGS LINK        NEXTHOP
  38628 --   london      56:db:46:be:b9:62
  58753 L    --          --

How to View Configuration Information About Bridge Links

The dladm show-link output includes the BRIDGE field. If a link is a member of a bridge, this field identifies the name of the bridge of which it is a member. This field is shown by default. For links that are not part of a bridge, the field is blank if the -p option is used. Otherwise, the field shows --.

The bridge's observability node also appears in the dladm show-link output as a separate link. For this node, the existing OVER field lists the links that are members of the bridge.

1. Become an administrator.

   For more information, see How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.

2. View configuration information about any link that is a member of a bridge.

   # dladm show-link [-p]

   The -p option produces output in a parseable format.

How to Create a Bridge

This procedure explains how to use STP to create a bridge, which is the default protocol. For more information about bridge creation options, see the description of the dladm create-bridge command in the dladm(1M) man page.

The dladm create-bridge command creates a bridge instance and optionally assigns one or more network links to the new bridge. Because no bridge instances are present on the system by default, Oracle Solaris does not create bridges between network links by default.

To create a bridge between links, you must create at least one bridge instance. Each bridge instance is separate. Bridges do not include a forwarding connection between them, and a link is a member of at most one bridge.

bridge-name is an arbitrary string that must be a legal SMF service instance name. This name is an FMRI component that has no escape sequences, which means that white space, ASCII control characters, and the following characters cannot be present:

; / ? : @ & = + $ , % < > # "

The name default is reserved, as are all names beginning with the SUNW string. Names that have trailing digits are reserved for the creation of observability devices, which are used for debugging. Because of the use of observability devices, the names of legal bridge instances are further constrained to be a legal dlpi name. The name must begin and end with an alphabetic character or an underscore character. The rest of the name can contain alphanumeric and underscore characters.

1. Become an administrator.

   For more information, see How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.

2. Create the bridge.

   # dladm create-bridge [-l link]... bridge-name

   The -l link option adds a link to the bridge. If any of the specified links cannot be added, the command fails and the bridge is not created.

   The following example shows how to create the brooklyn bridge by connecting the net0 and net1 links:

   # dladm create-bridge -l net0 -l net1 brooklyn

How to Modify the Protection Type for a Bridge

This procedure explains how to use the dladm modify-bridge command to modify the protection type from STP to TRILL or from TRILL to STP.

• Modify the protection type for a bridge.

  # dladm modify-bridge -P protection-type bridge-name

  The -P protection-type option specifies which protection type to use. By default, the protection type is STP (-P stp). To use the TRILL protection type, use the -P trill option.

  The following example shows how to modify the protection type for the brooklyn bridge from the default STP to TRILL:

  # dladm modify-bridge -P trill brooklyn

How to Add One or More Links to an Existing Bridge

This procedure explains how to add one or more links to a bridge instance.

A link can be a member of at most one bridge. So, if you want to move a link from one bridge instance to another bridge instance, you must first remove the link from the current bridge before adding it to another bridge.

The links that are assigned to a bridge cannot be VLANs, VNICs, or tunnels. Only links that are acceptable as part of an aggregation, or links that are aggregations themselves can be assigned to a bridge.

Links that are assigned to the same bridge must have the same MTU value. Note that Oracle Solaris allows you to change the MTU value on an existing link. However, the bridge instance goes into maintenance state until you remove or change the assigned links so that the MTU values match before you restart the bridge.

The links that are assigned to the bridge must be an Ethernet type, which includes 802.3 and 802.11 media.

1. Become an administrator.

   For more information, see How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.

2. Add a new link to an existing bridge.

   # dladm add-bridge -l new-link bridge-name

   The following example shows how to add the net2 link to the existing bridge rialto:

   # dladm add-bridge -l net2 rialto

How to Remove Links From a Bridge

This procedure explains how to remove one or more links from a bridge instance. Use this procedure if you intend to delete a bridge. Before the bridge can be deleted, all of its links must first be removed.

1. Become an administrator.

   For more information, see How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.

2. Remove the links from the bridge.

   # dladm remove-bridge [-l link]... bridge-name

   The following example shows how to remove the net0, net1, and net2 links from the bridge charles:

   # dladm remove-bridge -l net0 -l net1 -l net2 charles

How to Delete a Bridge From the System

This procedure explains how to delete a bridge instance. Before you can delete a bridge, you must first deactivate any attached links by running the dladm remove-bridge command. See How to Remove Links From a Bridge.

1. Become an administrator.

   For more information, see How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.

2. Delete the bridge from the system.

   # dladm delete-bridge bridge-name

   The following example shows how to remove the net0, net1, and net2 links from the coronado bridge, and then delete the bridge itself from the system:

   # dladm remove-bridge -l net0 -l net1 -l net2 coronado
   # dladm delete-bridge coronado