On Fri, Aug 10, 2007 at 10:26:03AM -0400, James Carlson wrote:
> David Edmondson writes:
> > With the recent surge of interest[1] in the ethernet bridging
> > implementation, it seems worth reviewing the current state and
> > discussing some possible next steps.
> 
> Agreed.  (As I said in the project announcement, I was hoping to have
> discussions like this one on networking-discuss, because they're wider
> than just the RBridges project team details.  If you can redirect
> there, that'd be helpful.)

Okay (I kept the ethbridge-discuss list in case there are people who
live just there).

> > As a side-effect of the Solaris on Xen[2] project we did some work on
> > 2, 3 and 5 (mostly Dong-Hai). In the end we didn't use that work, so
> > it's sitting around in a workspace somewhere un-loved.
> 
> It'd be good to get that stuff up on opensolaris.org, at least.

Agreed.

> I'd like to have someone else do the underlying generic bridging
> work because they're motivated.  That'd be great, and I'd welcome
> collaboration with an active ethbridge project.  Failing that,
> though, we'll have to figure out what makes sense for our project,
> even if that means reinventing a wheel.

At the moment I don't know of anyone with a particular interest in
working on the code. As mentioned before, the Solaris on Xen project
used the code for a while but then switched to VNICs.

> > So, what to do next? Here are some options that occurred to me:
> > 
> > * Produce an updated version of the code in its' current form
> >   (i.e. standalone build, no DLPI changes),
> > * Produce an ON derived gate with the bridging code and DLPI
> >   promiscious mode changes integrated,
> > * Nothing - leave things limping along,
> > * Abandon the current bits and close down the project.
> 
> In order to determine which of these is the right direction, I think
> it'd be helpful to have a design document for the existing bridging
> code.  Does that exist?  Other than a README and a few discussions,
> I don't see one.

I know of nothing more.

> If we don't have that, it'd be good to have access to the source.  I
> assume that the 19-month-old ethbridge-0.9.tar.gz isn't the latest
> stuff ... does anyone know what is?  (Should I contact Dong-Hai or
> someone else?)

Dong-Hai worked specifically on the DLPI promiscious loopback
problem. Most of the bridge related fixes were me. The code I have is
a snapshot of the Solaris on Xen gate from some time ago. It has the
bridging code (integrated into ON) and the DLPI loopback changes (as
well as a bunch of unrelated Xen stuff, obviously).

> > The first of these would be relatively simple and, presumably, useful
> > to the people who are using the existing code.
> > 
> > The second would be more useful to some (due to the loopback changes),
> > but is incomplete (the loopback changes were not finished) and more
> > difficult to build (because you have to build ON). This version would
> > work as well as the first when built.
> 
> I suspect that (1) would be the quickest way to a prototype.

Okay. I'll extract the latest bits I have, make them build stand-alone
and then put them in a repository on hg.opensolaris.org.

Is there a particular date by which you need this?

dme.
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