interface(4tcp)

Description

Files

/dev/ip

/etc/confnet.d/inet/config.boot.sh

/etc/confnet.d/netdrivers

/etc/hosts

/usr/bin/uname

Usage

   prefix:unit:address:device:ifconfig_opts:slink_opts

prefix

Is an identifier for a driver's netstat (see netstat(1Mtcp)) statistics. Traditionally this value corresponds to the common name used for a particular device. This field cannot be null and it has no default.

unit

Is the index per prefix type in the IP internal netstat array, where zero is the first element's index. This field should consist of only 0-9. This field cannot be null and it has no default.

address

Is used by ifconfig to initialize the transport provider. This may be the Internet name from /etc/hosts (see hosts(4tcp)) or an address in Internet standard dot notation. Null is expanded to the system nodename, obtained by searching /etc/hosts for the /usr/bin/uname -n entry.

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NOTE: The system nodename should be used for only one interface line.

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device

Is the device node name of the transport provider. It is allocated from available network devices listed in /etc/confnet.d/netdrivers (see netdrivers(4bnu)) through netcfg(1M). This field cannot be null and it has no default.

ifconfig_opts

Is used to customize the ifconfig options used at boot time and may contain any options defined on ifconfig(1Mtcp).

The constructed command line takes the form:

ifconfig prefixunit converted_address ifconfig_opts up

The meanings of the arguments to ifconfig are as follows:

prefixunit

The concatenation of prefix and unit. prefixunit result may be used as the interface parameter given to ifconfig and netstat.

converted_address

The /etc/hosts value for the address field.

ifconfig_opts

This can be null and has no default, but it is traditionally set to -trailers (needed by transport providers). See ifconfig(1Mtcp) and netcfg(1M). ifconfig_opts is null when the transport provider is lo (localhost in /etc/hosts). localhost requires no additional ifconfig options at boot time.

slink_opts

slink_opts and the /etc/strcf file (see strcf(4tcp)) are used by slink to initialize the device into the TCP/IP protocol stack. slink_opts defines the strcf function and its first arguments (it is not limited to one word). add_interface is the default slink_opts value. Additional arguments will be appended to slink_opts to make the final form of the slink operation:

slink_opts ip device prefixunit

ip is an open file descriptor to /dev/ip, and device and prefixunit are defined in the current interface entry. For a standard Ethernet board, slink_opts may be null; the defaults will take care of all arguments.

References

Examples

   lo:0:localhost:/dev/loop:netmask 0xff000000:add_loop

The following ifconfig command would also be generated for boot time:

ifconfig lo0 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 up

Note that the netmask arguments are present only for the purpose of this example.