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# Ethernet Bridge + netfilter Howto

## Nils Radtke

v0.8, July 2005

Setting up an ethernet bridge gives us the chance to integrate a surveying and/or regulating instance transparently into an existing network. This setup requires no changes to the logical network topology. It is accomplished by plugging the ethernet bridge in the physical network topology between the network itself and the routing instance (that piece of hardware connected to the Internet).

This Howto is available in other formats. Preferably downloadable: documentation tarball. You may find this Howto as part of the Linux Documentation Project.

Looking for other languages? See the German version, then! And as of march 2003 there is a french version available with courtesy of François Romieu and Guillaume Lelarge: French version. Today, some day in july 2005, I stumbled across an italian version of this HOWTO! Unfortunately there's no translator's note in the document, courtesy is unbeknownst so far: Italian version.

2005-07-12:

  Added link to italian version of this HOWTO (see above). Plus a section about making the changes reboot-persistent, a note about 2.6 kernel not working as expected and the user experiences-section. Included the Final note-section. :)

2005-06-06:

  Unfortunately, the linux documentation project does not respond actively to update requests. This results in an outdated version of the on www.tldp.org site. Use this site instead, if you want to stick with the most actual version of the HOWTO. Blame the tldp people.

2004-08-03:

  Carsten (C DOT Lueth AT fielmann DOT com) has found a variant for MS Windows (TM) systems.

2004-06-13:

  Update on used kernel versions, warning about remote administering, netfilter debugging code. New translation available: French (link c. f. above). Discontinued german version.

2002-09-19:

  links about ebtables have been updated in the "Related Topics" Section. Added note about "false positive" br-nf debugging output.

2002-10-08:

  Added section Actual configuration and hints about routing in Setting up the routing, Ping it, Jim! , resp.

## 1. Introduction

## 2. Required software

- 2.1 Featured Linux kernel
- 2.2 Userspace tool: `brctl`
- 2.3 Kernel-Notes

## 3. Set Linux up to serve

- 3.1 Setting up the bridge
- 3.2 Setting up the routing
- 3.3 Make it happen again!

## 4. Test your new bridged environment!

- 4.1 Testing Grounds
- 4.2 Ping it, Jim!
- 4.3 Actual configuration
- 4.4 Final note (Important!)
- 4.5 Bug-Notes

## 5. User experiences

- 5.1 Fedora Core 3

## 6. Links

- 6.1 Ethernet-Bridge
- 6.2 Related Topics

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