Ubuntu – How to make sysctl network bridge settings persist after a reboot

12.04kvmnat;network-bridge

I am setting up a notebook for software demo purpose. The machine has 8GB RAM, a Core i7 Intel CPU, a 128GB SSD, and runs Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit. The notebook is used as a KVM host and runs a few KVM guests.

All such guests use the virbr0 default bridge. To enable them to communicate with each other using multicast, I added the following to the host's /etc/sysctl.conf, as shown below

net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 0
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables = 0
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-arptables = 0

Afterwards, following man sysctl(8), I issued the following:

sudo /sbin/sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf

My understanding is that this should make these settings persist over reboots. I tested it, and was surprised to find out the following:

root@sdn1 :/proc/sys/net/bridge# more *tables
::::::::::::::
bridge-nf-call-arptables
::::::::::::::
1
::::::::::::::
bridge-nf-call-ip6tables
::::::::::::::
1
::::::::::::::
bridge-nf-call-iptables
::::::::::::::
1

All defaults are coming back!

Yes. I can use some kludgy "get arounds" such as putting a /sbin/sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf into the host's /etc/rc.local but I would rather "do it right". Did I misunderstand the man page or is there something that I missed?

Thanks for any hints.

— Zack

Best Answer

By serendipity, I ran into some additional info. Even the "kludgy get around" I first thought about is a "suggested solution" in the Debain wiki, it doesn't work on my Ubuntu 12.04 machine! Sigh :-(

Please see Some sysctl's are ignored on boot - someone reported this bug back in 2006 and it's still not fixed!

Note that Setting up bridge-related kernel variables is also referenced in the 2nd link above.

A rather disappointing situation, IMHO.

-- Zack

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