ethfilter - layer 2/3 ethernet packet filter

I have just release ethfilter version 1.0.0 on sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ethfilter

ethfilter is a ethernet layer packet filter which, amongst other things, 
permits multiple 802.1D bridges to operate on a single Linux machine. It 
does this by creating multiple virutal network devices (layered on top 
of a single physical ethernet interface) and configuring each to 
accept/receive Ethernet frames that match different layer 2 and/or layer 
3 QoS parameters (e.g. DiffServ/IP Precedence and/or 802.1Q and/or 802.3 
MAC address).

Each virtual network device (ethfilter device) can then be attached to a 
seperate 802.1D bridge so that ethernet traffic can be bridged based on 
source MAC address, layer 3 precedence (IP Tos Precedence field in IP 
header), layer 2 precedence (priority field in 802.1Q ethernet header) 
and VLAN identifier (again defined in 802.1Q ethernet header).

ethfilter is particularly useful when it is necessary to bridge ethernet 
traffic which has different quality of service (QoS) requirements. 
Ethernet frames coming for a Voice over IP (VoIP) or Video on Demand 
(VoD) application have real-time demands and are sensitive to delay and 
jitter (i.e. they are isochronous in nature). On the other hand, 
Ethernet frames coming from a web browser application or ftp session are 
much more tolerent to delay and delay variation.  Thus when bridging 
ethernet traffic it is sensible to bridge/route VoIP/VoD traffic over a 
network which offers minimal jitter and delay and bridge/route traffic 
from a web browser over one that isn't. This is where ethfilter comes it.

Here's an example of how the ethfilter could be used in
conjunction with two 802.1D bridges to bridge 802.1q tagged
Ethernet frames over one RFC2684 ATM/AAL5 VC and all other
(untagged) frames over a second.

     ---------------------------------
    |    bridge 0    |    bridge 1    |
     ---------------------------------
    | nas32 | eth0,0 | eth0,1 | nas33 |
     ------- ----------------- -------
    |  AAL5 |      eth0       |  AAL5 |
     ------- ----------------- -------
    |  ATM  |                 |  ATM  |
      -------                  -------

This project is designed to run on Linux and is a patch to kernel
version 2.4.31.

To subscribe to the ethfilter mailing list here: 
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ethfilter-general

Dave


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