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Bug#939713: add support for ifupdown bridge

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  Bug#939713: add support for ifupdown bridge Martin-Éric Racine <martin-eric.racine@iki.fi> - 2025-11-10 08:00 +0100
    Bug#939713: add support for ifupdown bridge Daniel Gröber <dxld@darkboxed.org> - 2025-11-11 01:30 +0100
      Bug#939713: ifupdown: Add support for iproute2 bridge (Was: Re: add support for ifupdown bridge) Daniel Gröber <dxld@darkboxed.org> - 2025-11-11 12:50 +0100
        Bug#939713: ifupdown: Add support for iproute2 bridge (Was: Re: add support for ifupdown bridge) Martin-Éric Racine <martin-eric.racine@iki.fi> - 2025-11-11 13:00 +0100
          Bug#939713: ifupdown: Add support for iproute2 bridge (Was: Re: add support for ifupdown bridge) Daniel Gröber <dxld@darkboxed.org> - 2025-11-11 14:20 +0100

#1269691 — Bug#939713: add support for ifupdown bridge

Package: ifupdown
Followup-For: Bug #939713
X-Debbugs-Cc: martin-eric.racine@iki.fi

Returning to this issue, now that ifupdown finally has an active developer. Thanks Daniel for picking this up.

Deprecating bridge-utils and implementing support for bridge creation using the 'ip' command as a backend within ifupdown remains a highly desirable goal.

Martin-Éric

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#1269764

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Control: retitle -1 ifupdown: Add support for iproute2 bridge
Control: tags -1 + wontfix

On Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 08:51:30AM +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> Deprecating bridge-utils and implementing support for bridge creation
> using the 'ip' command as a backend within ifupdown

I don't expect this will happen in traditional ifupdown.

ifupdown-ng already has iproute2 `bridge` support see
  https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/ifupdown-ng/interfaces-bridge.5.en.html

and the implementation

  https://github.com/ifupdown-ng/ifupdown-ng/blob/main/executors/linux/bridge#L126C1-L126C25

Let me know if you find anything missing or wonky so I can add it to my
compat TODO list.

> remains a highly desirable goal.

I don't see the pressing need, can you explain the motivation? I don't
personally use bridges very much.

--Daniel

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#1269797 — Bug#939713: ifupdown: Add support for iproute2 bridge (Was: Re: add support for ifupdown bridge)

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On Tue, Nov 11, 2025 at 09:13:46AM +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> > I don't expect this will happen in traditional ifupdown.
> 
> Why not?

Moving to ifupdown-ng is the strategy that was agreed upon among the people
doing the work. Please refer back to
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2024/07/msg00098.html#:~:text=ifupdown-ng
for (some) reasoning and the DC25 Networking BoF for some more discussion
https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2025/DebConf25/debconf25-124-networking-bof.vp8.webm.

> > > remains a highly desirable goal.
> >
> > I don't see the pressing need, can you explain the motivation? I don't
> > personally use bridges very much.
> 
> 3) bridge-utils is buggy and no longer maintained upstream.

I'm not aware of any high-priority issues with bridge-utils. Could you be
more specific?

> 1) It's long been requested.

> 2) It's needed to group several PHY under one interface. It's pretty much
> a must for routers.

I do understand the basic bridge use-case.

What I don't see is why replacing bridge-utils (brctl) should be of such
priority that we need to do it *right now* in ifupdown rather than just
wait until it's replaced by -ng?

--Daniel

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#1269798 — Bug#939713: ifupdown: Add support for iproute2 bridge (Was: Re: add support for ifupdown bridge)

ti 11.11.2025 klo 13.39 Daniel Gröber (dxld@darkboxed.org) kirjoitti:
>
> On Tue, Nov 11, 2025 at 09:13:46AM +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> > > I don't expect this will happen in traditional ifupdown.
> >
> > Why not?
>
> Moving to ifupdown-ng is the strategy that was agreed upon among the people
> doing the work. Please refer back to
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2024/07/msg00098.html#:~:text=ifupdown-ng
> for (some) reasoning and the DC25 Networking BoF for some more discussion
> https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2025/DebConf25/debconf25-124-networking-bof.vp8.webm.

There was no agreement on the mailing list.  The BoF wasn't accessible
to many interested parties.

> > > > remains a highly desirable goal.
> > >
> > > I don't see the pressing need, can you explain the motivation? I don't
> > > personally use bridges very much.
> >
> > 3) bridge-utils is buggy and no longer maintained upstream.
>
> I'm not aware of any high-priority issues with bridge-utils. Could you be
> more specific?

1) It has widely different behaviors depending on whether the bridge
is started via allow-hotplug or via auto.
2) The aforementioned inconsistency with LL6 has long remained unsolved.

> > 1) It's long been requested.
>
> > 2) It's needed to group several PHY under one interface. It's pretty much
> > a must for routers.
>
> I do understand the basic bridge use-case.
>
> What I don't see is why replacing bridge-utils (brctl) should be of such
> priority that we need to do it *right now* in ifupdown rather than just
> wait until it's replaced by -ng?

1) It was requested ages ago, back when it became clear that
bridge-utils was deprecated, and has remained unanswered since then.
Just look at the thread.
2) We need something that works in a predictable and consitent way now.
3) ifupdown-ng has changed some of the configuration syntax, so it
cannot replace ifupdown.

Martin-Éric

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#1269812 — Bug#939713: ifupdown: Add support for iproute2 bridge (Was: Re: add support for ifupdown bridge)

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Hi Martin,

On Tue, Nov 11, 2025 at 01:55:18PM +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> > Moving to ifupdown-ng is the strategy that was agreed upon among the people
> > doing the work. Please refer back to
> > https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2024/07/msg00098.html#:~:text=ifupdown-ng
> > for (some) reasoning and the DC25 Networking BoF for some more discussion
> > https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2025/DebConf25/debconf25-124-networking-bof.vp8.webm.
> 
> The BoF wasn't accessible to many interested parties.

If you watch the BoF you'll find no formal decisions were made, but people
got to discuss their high level concerns.

We would have loved to hear your perspective but unfortunately you chose
not to join the BoF remotely. Keep in mind that despite lack of DC video
team coverage in our room Me and Lukkas scrambled to put together a video
call and recording setup last minute amidst a packed conference schedule
essentially just for you.

You ended up choosing not to participate.

> There was no agreement on the mailing list.  

Martin. Keep in mind Debian is a do-ocracy. I'm merely informing you the
people doing (or having done) the doing are headed this way. If you
disagree with this strategy you should feel free to do your own work and
present it as an alternative.

Given the growing (*cries*) number of items on my -ng compat TODO list it
may yet be a while until we feel ready to make the change, but once we are
ready we'll certainly send an announcment about it to d-devel before
uploading to unstable given this is a major change.

> > I'm not aware of any high-priority issues with bridge-utils. Could you be
> > more specific?
> 
> 1) It has widely different behaviors depending on whether the bridge
> is started via allow-hotplug or via auto.

Different how? What's the user impact?

> 2) The aforementioned inconsistency with LL6 has long remained unsolved.

I don't see how that could have any real world impact. Can you refer me to
any reports demonstrating a problem other than aesthetics?

> > What I don't see is why replacing bridge-utils (brctl) should be of such
> > priority that we need to do it *right now* in ifupdown rather than just
> > wait until it's replaced by -ng?
> 
> 1) It was requested ages ago, back when it became clear that
> bridge-utils was deprecated, and has remained unanswered since then.
> Just look at the thread.
> 2) We need something that works in a predictable and consitent way now.

I have no particular interest in the bridging area at the moment as I've
said. Despite this I'm giving you the opportunity to bring important issues
to my attention here, but so far all I see is opinion and no technical
substance. Bugx or it didn't happen as the kids like to say :D.

> 3) ifupdown-ng has changed some of the configuration syntax, so it
> cannot replace ifupdown.

We've discussed this before and you neglected to point out any concrete way
in which this is the case. I expect it actually fixes your issues with at
most minor changes in the compatibility code.

Have you considered trying ifupdown-ng and reporting bugs to demostrate
your point?

--Daniel

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