bridge-utils in Launchpad

bridge-utils

Registered 2005-06-24 by Registry Administrators

This package contains utilities for configuring the Linux ethernet bridge in Linux 2.4 or later. The Linux ethernet bridge can be used for connecting multiple ethernet devices together. The connecting is fully transparent: hosts connected to one ethernet device see hosts connected to the other ethernet devices directly.

Ethernet bridging is a way to connect networks together to form a larger network. The standard for bridging is ANSI/IEEE 802.1d which downloaded from IEEE get 802 site. A bridge is a way to connect two separate network segments together in a protocol independent way. Packets are forwarded based on Ethernet address, rather than IP address (like a router). Since forwarding is done at Layer 2, all protocols can go transparently through a bridge.

The original Linux bridging was first done in Linux 2.2, then rewritten by Lennert Buytenhek. The code for bridging has been integrated into 2.4 and 2.6 kernel series.

A Linux bridge is more powerful than a pure hardware bridge because it can also filter and shape traffic. The combination of bridging and firewalling is done with the companion project ebtables.