netdev - Re: [Xen-devel] [RFC v2 1/4] bridge: enable interfaces to opt out from becoming the root bridge

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Message-ID: <CAB=NE6Xx1f2zYaTP=h-319_T4UtsXVjn0+ZPrSuCqXJ6hk5Jhw@mail.gmail.com>
Date:	Fri, 21 Feb 2014 07:59:20 -0800
From:	"Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...not-panic.com>
To:	Zoltan Kiss <zoltan.kiss@...rix.com>
Cc:	Stephen Hemminger <stephen@...workplumber.org>,
	Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@...rix.com>, kvm@...r.kernel.org,
	"netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
	bridge@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	xen-devel@...ts.xenproject.org
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [RFC v2 1/4] bridge: enable interfaces to opt out
 from becoming the root bridge

On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 5:02 AM, Zoltan Kiss <zoltan.kiss@...rix.com> wrote:
> On 20/02/14 20:01, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 5:19 AM, Zoltan Kiss <zoltan.kiss@...rix.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> How about this: netback sets the root_block flag and a random MAC by
>>> default. So the default behaviour won't change, DAD will be happy, and
>>> userspace don't have to do anything unless it's using netback for STP
>>> root
>>> bridge (I don't think there are too many toolstacks doing that), in which
>>> case it has to remove the root_block flag instead of setting a random
>>> MAC.
>>
>>
>> :D that's exactly what I ended up proposing too. I mentioned how
>> xen-netback could do this as well, we'd keep or rename the flag I
>> added, and then the bridge could would look at it and enable the root
>> block if the flag is set. Stephen however does not like having the
>> bridge code look at magic flags for this behavior and would prefer for
>> us to get the tools to ask for the root block. Let's follow more up on
>> that thread
>
> We don't need that new flag, just forget about it.

Unless I'm missing something the root_block flag is a bridge port
primitive. This means we can't set it *until* the interface gets added
to a bridge, and even then, its a knob that would be available only to
the bridge.

> Another problem with the random addresses, pointed out by Ian earlier, that
> when adding/removing interfaces, the bridge does recalculate it's MAC
> address, and choose the lowest one. In the general usecase I think that's
> normal, but in case of Xen networking, we would like to keep the bridge
> using the physical interface's MAC, because the local port of the bridge is
> used for Dom0 network traffic, therefore changing the bridge MAC when a
> netback device has lower MAC breaks that traffic.

This is a good reason then to actually have an interface general
specific knob to annotate to the bridge that we'd prefer to root_block
by default, the alternative as you point out below is to have the xen
/ kvm utils to set the bridge MAC address statically, but that'll
requires a userspace upgrade. I'm looking for a kernel solution that
is backwards compatible with old userspace.

> I think the best is to
> address this from userspace: if it set the MAC of the bridge explicitly,
> dev_set_mac_address() does dev->addr_assign_type = NET_ADDR_SET;, so
> br_stp_recalculate_bridge_id() will exit before changing anything.

That will certainly work for new xen / kvm util userspace.

  Luis
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