Greetings, I think a step back might be needed, to at least ensure there is a complete understanding. The *overall* mechanism for signaling to the ML2 driver with Ironic is to populate the local_link_information field values with the values pertinent/expected by the ML2 plugin. This can mean there is some ML2 plugin based variance on what values they want or expect. Generally the required and expected information revolves around information discoverable via Link Layer Discovery Protocol. When a port binding action occurs in neutron, this data is set to an ML2 plugin which attempts to match the port and supplied data to determine if it can act upon the port. In terms of the differences between networking-generic-switch and networking-baremetal. Networking-generic-swtich is an ML2 plugin which serves as a general configuration mechanism, generic in this context, and has a plugin backend for the interface drivers. This is all networking-generic-switch does, facilitate the physical port attachment and detachment. networking-baremetal has several different functions: Provide mapping update data to associate ports with physical networks in Neutron. Enable "flat" network interfaces to exit configuration completely. Finally, a driver interface which attempts to serve a similar purpose to networking-generic-switch for devices supporting Netconf, however this interface never really got off the ground. That being said, depending on your vendor, you may need both plugins running. In terms of the field values used, as far as I'm aware they both support the same values, but networking-baremetal's presence addresses unrelated items to the base port binding action of an ML2 plugin. Hopefully that helps clear some of the confusion up. -Julia On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 5:56 AM Joao Antonio <joao.antonio@taikun.cloud> wrote:
Hello, team!
What is the difference between networking-generic-switch and networking-baremetal in terms of local_link_information? The networking-generic-switch README file is explicit about local_link_information. Does networking-baremetal also handle local_link_information?
-- Joao