FreeBSD 15 comes with a new bridging implementation which has native support for VLANs. They have also soft-deprecated the ability to have any layer 3 addresses on member interfaces which makes it behave like a real hardware switch. The net.link.bridge.member_ifaddrs sysctl controls this behavior and it will …

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FreeBSD 15 introduces a new bridging implementation with native VLAN support, replacing the old per-VLAN bridge design. The new approach allows a single bridge to handle multiple tagged and untagged VLANs, dramatically simplifying rc.conf configuration. Key changes include the soft-deprecation of layer 3 addresses on bridge member interfaces (removed in FreeBSD 16), the required `vlanfilter` flag, and the need for `-vlanhwfilter` on epair devices. The post covers practical migration steps for VNET jails using a custom shell script to replace the old `jib` helper, and documents a workaround for bhyve VMs via vm-bhyve, which lacks native support for the new bridging model.

Using The New Bridges of FreeBSD 15