Does bridge interface handle failover automatically?

[eroji]

I created a bridge interface br0 which both ports on my NIC are member of. The static IP is configured on the bridge interface and I only have 1 of the ports on the NIC currently connected. My question is, if I connect both ports to the same network (VLAN), would it automatically handle failover? Meaning if one of the ports fail for whatever reason the other one should take over?

 

[jgreco]

No. It would create a loop, and would probably cause your network to crash. This is what Spanning Tree Protocol is designed to prevent. If you want failover, you need to use a bond with active/failover. I don't know much about this on Linux so that's all I'm going to say.

 

[morganL]

Better approach is Link Aggregation.. not bridging multiple interfaces.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

If you activate STP this is IMHO going to work as intended. You will utilize only one link at a time, though. Don't connect both ports without STP - this will create a loop and bring down your network as @jgreco correctly stated.

I don't know how to do this in Linux/TrueNAS SCALE, sorry. I could tell you for CORE.

@jgreco @morganL You can have failover - although not aggregation - with just STP, even connect to different switches without multi-chassis LACP etc. I do agree that you should know what you are doing. Don't let your TrueNAS accidentally become the root bridge, for example. I would not do it with unmanaged switches where I cannot checkt the state of STP. With an all IOS environment - why not? We have run a hub-and-spoke switch topology with STP for years.