Linux Ethernet Bridging - Apr 2010 - [Bridge] RSTP-Linux Bridge (2.6 Kernel) query

Hi all,

I am fairly new to Bridging, and I have been trying to understand the
Bridge-RSTP communication. I have an RSTP implementation running in
user-space and I would like to use the existing Linux bridge data-structures
(like net_bridge, net_bridge_port used in Linux 2.6) so that I have a
Linux-Bridge/RSTP setup. For this I need to introduce some sort of
communication mechanism (maybe IOCTL calls) to alter these data-structures
by my RSTP.

My idea is to disable STP (thus making sure that routines like
br_configuration_update() are not called) and then use a communication
mechanism to alter bridge/bridge-port states(stored in net_bridge) of kernel
from my RSTP.

On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:05:35 +0530
voxner <voxner.dev at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am fairly new to Bridging, and I have been trying to understand the
> Bridge-RSTP communication. I have an RSTP implementation running in
> user-space and I would like to use the existing Linux bridge
data-structures
> (like net_bridge, net_bridge_port used in Linux 2.6) so that I have a
> Linux-Bridge/RSTP setup. For this I need to introduce some sort of
> communication mechanism (maybe IOCTL calls) to alter these data-structures
> by my RSTP.
Did you look at RSTP user space daemon? or is this a new one.
       git clone git.kernel.org:/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/shemminger/rstp.git

I already have five alternatives for RSTP, and none of them is fully
integrated!  3 user space daemons (1 on rstplib, 1 from EMC, and
another). 2 kernel implementations based on old 2.4 code.

Somewhere down the road, there needs to be one and only one solution
and it has to just work out of the box.  If I had infinite time, or
a major Vyatta customer demanded it, I would just integrate one of
the 2.4 implementations and be done.