Where do I put the IP, on the ethernet port or the bridge.

Please point me to RTFM, I am sure this is an easy one, I have little experience with
bridgable routers.

Working with5 port mikrotik running 5.7 trygint to trace where packets are dying using
torch etc.

Each port has a different IP, except 1 and 2 which are bridged together as bridge1.

What is the functional difference between putting the IP on ether1, or on bridge1?

This seems to affect a lot of things, torch, dhcp, god knows what else. Is there an
easy understanding of when and where to put the IP’s on the ports and when to put
it on the bridges?

Thanks in advance,

Homer W. Smith
CEO Lightlink Internet

Case in point.

Router has ports 1 and 2 bridged into bridge1, with IP 10.16.31.37 on ether port 1.

arping for 10.16.31.39 which hangs off of ether1 shows no response from ether1, but does respond from the Bridge1.

What is the sense of this please?

Homer

Put all the settings to the bridge and remove it from the ports. Also think about ros upgrade as your version is very old.

ROS offers you the possibility of customizing your router interfaces to suit your needs.

Once you create a new device, be it a soft bridge like your case, or create a switch group by setting one interface as master port and enslave other interfaces to it, you shoud deal with it as what it is: a new device that:

  • should be the one specified as part of other settings (DHCP, PPPoE, servers)
  • where any settings like IPs, etc should be set either on the bridge, or the master port.

Once you create it forget about the interfaces that take part of it, now they’re part of another device.

Thank you for your reply, I actually understood it.

Can you clarify the difference between a ‘soft bridge’, and a ‘bridge group’ with one
interface as master and the others as slave?

This is in the manual right?

Thanks for your time.

Homer

Soft bridge = create a bridge interface, add ports to it. Bridged packets traverse router CPU and switch chip to CPU link.

master ports = do the switching on the switch chip. Packets going between ports with the same master are switched on the switch chip at wire speed. CPU does not see switched frames so can’t [eg] torch them.

This may indeed be documented somewhere.

Ah that explains a lot! Thanks.

Homer