Bug#680094: iproute: ip link can't remove bridge created with brctl
On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 11:55:44AM -0500, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
[...]
> Can you say a little more about the background? Is this a regression?
I don't know if I can, but I'll try....
The main background is that the ioctl interfaces traditionally used
by tools like ifconfig, route, ... (net-tools), bridge-utils, etc
was considered not appropriate and the new "netlink" (socket) interface
was invented which gives alot more power oven the traditional interface.
The iproute2 suite was created to have a basic administrative userspace
application to use the new netlink interface.
Some functionality is still quite new on the netlink side (both in
iproute2 and linux). Among these are the bridging commands.
Adding bridges via iproute2 seems to have been introduced in 2011
(commit bb900b27a2f49b37bc38c08e656ea13048fee13b).
This is thus not a real regression, but one hurdle in switching over
from old ioctl based tools to new netlink based tools.
> What kernel versions are affected? Is this going to create trouble
All versions are affected (I guess sarge kernel doesn't support
much bridge functionality over netlink at all), while current wheezy
kernel only has a problem with removing brctl created bridges.
> during squeeze → wheezy upgrades for people upgrading userspace before
> the kernel or vice versa?
I don't think ifupdown has any bridge functionality, so I don't see a
direct connection in the dist-upgrade case. Indirectly, one would
hope that people might do an overhaul of their system in connection
to dist-upgrades and then it could affect people....
This is mainly just a runtime annoyance, when you do a switch over
from bridge-utils (brctl) to iproute2 (ip) for managing your bridges.
It's not a large problem, since if you really want to switch you can
just get rid of your old bridges by rebooting (and while at it testing your
scripts to work correctly during system bootup!)....
ie. if you create your bridges with iproute2, you won't have a problem.
--
Andreas Henriksson
Reply to: