[ethbridge-discuss] [networking-discuss] What next for the ethbridge project?

[James Carlson]

David Edmondson writes:
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2007 at 10:26:03AM -0400, James Carlson wrote:
> > 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.

In that case, when we get to it, we'll pick it up.

It's hard to keep up without a program, but looks like neither Yukun
Zhang nor Mike Ditto is with Sun or active anymore on opensolaris.org.
If that's true, that leaves the ethbridge project itself without
leaders and without a rudder.

I'll try to ping them, but if that doesn't pan out, I think the
Networking or Xen core contributors ought to either find live owners
for this project, or the endorsements should be withdrawn.  It's a bit
of a distraction otherwise.

> > 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.

OK.

> > > 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.

Great!  Thanks.

> Is there a particular date by which you need this?

Nope.  We're off to a slow start, and much of the work we need to do
is in figuring out how the new IS-IS and TRILL code should operate.
Bridging is obviously important, but we've got enough to stay busy for
some time.

-- 
James Carlson, Solaris Networking              <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive         71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757   42.496N   Fax +1 781 442 1677