Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] Add pcap-based host network bridge

[Anthony Liguori]

Jan Kiszka wrote:
> This introduces bridged networking via pcap. Both Unix and Windows
> platforms are supported.
>
> While tap-based bridging provides basically the same support pcap does,
> the latter is often more handy to set up. Under Linux, it doesn't
> require to configure a bridge and it is able to bypass the ebtables if
> this is desired. Also under Windows, the bridge setup can be lengthy
> procedure compared to using the pcap interface.
>
> Signed-off-by: Klaus Wenninger <address@hidden>
> Signed-off-by: Jan Kiszka <address@hidden>
>   

The previous version of this had a fundamental flaw wrt guest->host 
communication on Linux.  My understanding was that this was an intrinsic 
limitation of pcap.

That's a blocker IMHO because it will invariably lead to many folks 
asking why ping to the host doesn't work (just like slirp).  Since it 
still requires root privileges, I don't think it improves a lot on tap.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori