[LARTC] Linux bridging and cascaded switches

["Greg Scott" <GregScott@InfraSupportEtc.com>]

Hi -
 
Still plugging away at my Linux bridge/firewall and thinking through the
consequences.  In a normal firewall situation, the Internet is on one
side, the internal LAN on the other. Duh!  But now, with a Linux bridge
in the middle, the whole thing becomes one big messy LAN.  So we have a
scenario that looks like this:

Internal---User---Core-----Firewall---Internet---Internet router
Servers   switch  switch  (Bridged)    switch   (and default GW for
                                                 internal servers)

The scenario is a little more complex than I drew above because the
internal side has more than one LAN segment participating in the bridge.
I'm working on a way to simulate all this here - before going into
production - but I have a big question;

That firewall/bridge is no longer a router - it's a bridge.  Well, a
bridge that also does a bunch of stateful IP layer 3 filtering.  So now,
it will participate in a spanning tree setup with all those switches, on
both sides of it - right?  I'm guessing I want to turn off STP in this
case.  Am I on the right track?

Thanks

- Greg Scott
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