F20 System Wide Change: NetworkManager Bridging Support
= Proposed System Wide Change: NetworkManager Bridging Support =
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/NetworkManagerBridging
Change owner(s): Dan Williams <dcbw at redhat dot com>, Pavel Šimerda
<psimerda at redhat dot com>
NetworkManager should be able to configure bridge interfaces with commonly used
options and recognize their existing configuration on startup without
disrupting their operation.
== Detailed description ==
A bridge connects two or more physical or virtual network interfaces to allow
network traffic to flow between the two interfaces at a low level. Bridging is
commonly used to connect Virtual Machines to the outside world; a bridge
interface is created, to which a physical interface (typically ethernet) is
assigned as a slave, and a virtual interface (typically TAP) is created and
also assigned to the bridge as a slave, and then given to the Virtual Machine.
Thus traffic from one or more VMs can be combined and sent out of the machine
via the physical interface.
This setup is currently done either manually using ifcfg files and ifup/ifdown,
or by a tool like libvirt/netcf. NetworkManager should be able to configure
bridge interfaces and their slaves with the same functionality as provided by
libvirt, and should recognize and not disrupt existing bridge connections when
it starts up.
== Scope ==
Proposal owners: development dcbw
Other developers: This feature requires changes to nm-applet (done), nm-
connection-editor (done), gnome-shell, gnome-control-center (in-progress) and
KDE counterparts to expose bridge interfaces and their connection information
in the user interface. NetworkManager also needs updates to implement the
proposed changes (mostly done).
This Change Proposal has been communicated with Wrangler before the Submission
deadline.