Subject: NetBSD machines in an STP (spanning tree, 802.1d) environment
To: None <netbsd-help@netbsd.org>
From: Timo Schoeler <timo.schoeler@macfinity.net>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 07/26/2005 16:05:46
hi,

before doing this via trial-and-error i'd like to hear some comments on
this ;)

i have 2+ machines running in the same subnet; i plan to CARP (or UCARP,
see pkgsrc/net/ucarp) them.

nonetheless i want redundancy for my switches, too, so i'd like to give
each host a connection (via dedicated NIC) to different switches which
run STP. thus, one link is disabled/the switch doesn't forward packets
to the (sub)net.

doing this plain, without (U)CARP, it'd mean to assign the same IP to
two interfaces, one of which doesn't appear on the LAN due to STP.

when the 'primary' switch (the root bridge in STP slang) fails, the now
in charge interface should come up (well, it should always be 'up' for
NetBSD, but it's not forwarded by the switch).

is there a big mistake in my thoughts? has anybody running a similar thing?

tia & regards,

timo schoeler