This is a small utility (driver and GUI
configuration tool) for MAC level bridging TCPIP bound network
interfaces (based on NDIS-hooking technology for Windows 2000/XP/2003).
It can be used, an example, with OpenVPN in its bridging mode,
especially with the server-end running on a Windows 2000 machine (which
misses native bridging available since Windows XP) or just for bridging
wireless and wired Ethernet when IP address space can't be divided into
subnets. System requirements:
Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003. How it works:
Basically,
Ethernet Bridge is kernel mode WinpkFilter based application, so please
refer our premium packet filtering library documentation for the
complete details. It implements bridging on the MAC level (below
TCP/IP). All functional code works completely in kernel mode, user mode
configuration application is responsible only for adding/removing
network adapters from the bridge. In order to improve the performance
of the solution we have decided to drop the support of the legacy
operating systems (Windows 9x/ME and NT 4.0 were supported by Ethernet
Bridge 1.14 and below). Starting from Windows 2000 NDIS has an internal
mechanism which allows avoiding loopback packets indications and we
used it to avoid loopback flood. Download:Ethernet Bridge 2.0 (x86 build)
How to install: Unzip and run the installer. You will have to reboot the system after the installation. How to use:
In
order to configure and start bridging you have to run bridge_cfg.exe.
After choosing bridged adapters you can shutdown bridge_cfg.exe, having
it running is not necessary since the configuration is completed. If
you disabled/enabled any network adapters or installed any additional
ones without reboot and want to add them to the bridge you may need to
run bridge_cfg.exe again.
Something like this is usally seen after bridge_cfg.exe is started for the first time
On the next screenshot Local Area Connection and Local Area Connection are bridged
If
you reboot then you have to configure the bridge again, saving settings
is not supported. However, if you need to start bridging from the
script (running during the system boot, an example) you can use simple
command line application bridge_cmd.exe which can be found in the
installation directory (\bin). If started without parameters it lists
the available Ethernet interfaces with the short information about
each. The example of its output is below:
The following Ethernet interfaces are available to MSTCP:
\DEVICE\{7D2E629A-9DDA-4B1A-989A-1931CAB0BB7A} Relates to: Local Area Connection 2 Current MAC: 0050BF9BF8BB Medium: 0x00000000 Current MTU: 1500 Current bridge status = NOT BRIDGED
\DEVICE\{24DED96F-A7E9-4382-9556-F6F0CDCDFDC0} Relates to: Local Area Connection Current MAC: 00508D5F3673 Medium: 0x00000000 Current MTU: 1500 Current bridge status = NOT BRIDGED
In
order to bridge the chosen interfaces you have to specify all of them
in the command line. The command below turns on bridging for the both
interfaces listed above:
In
command line you can specify internal network interface names (like
“\DEVICE\{24DED96F-A7E9-4382-9556-F6F0CDCDFDC0}”) , local area
connection name like it is displayed in Network Connections applet
(like “Local Area Connection”) or even name prefixes (in this case
bridging will be enabled for all adapters with the specified prefix, an
example specifying “\” as parameter will turn on bridging for all
available network interfaces). Using bridge_cmd you can turn on
bridging automatically during the system boot, an example, using SrvAny
or any similar tool. Disclaimer:
Ethernet Bridge is supplied
AS-IS, without warranties of any kind. Since it includes a kernel-mode
component, there is always the possibility that program bugs may damage
your system. Price & licensing:
