I want to set up a bridge using bridge-utils within /etc/network/interfaces like is shown here in this guide: http://compsoc.dur.ac.uk/~djw/qemu.html

The problem is that, at the same time, I want eth0 to have a specific static IP address. Right now I have a configuration for eth0. This guide tells me that I should not configure eth0 outside of the br0 configuration. So, then, how do I configure eth0?

The guide points is an automagic configuration. You have an existing one, so you'll have to bring the bridge up manually. Forget the guide and investigate that. You're bridging networks, so I presume you know what you're doing

Mkay. I am not a networking person. I am trying to set this virtualization platform up, and that guide calls for the use of a virtual bridge in order for the virtual machine to have its own address on the network.

What is this thing asking for, exactly? I don't understand completely what a bridge does. A bridge makes one interface from multiple interfaces? Wouldn't, then, the virtual machine have the same address as the real interface?
Maybe that is the goal of this guide and I am mistaken.

If eth0 and tap0 are supposed to have different, and real accessible IP addresses, how are these set up? This guide here shows the interfaces being canceled (addresses set to 0.0.0.0) and then the bridge being set up. http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO...ml#BASIC-SETUP

How, then, do I set up those two interfaces that are enslaved by the bridge? They need to have specific, static IP addresses.

I am not the networking person either, but let me try:

A bridge is a link between two separate networks. You have effectively 2 systems, Your own box(a) and the virtual one(b), but only one of them is connected to the network (a). There is then the questions about what the virtual machine will use for a nic.

Given that much, the idea seems to be to give the virtual box a virtual nic, and bridge that to the real nic. You've got time, haven't you? If not, give up; if you have some time, start reading somewhere like here, and explain it to us all when you figured it out.

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Net:Bridge