interface(4tcp)


interface -- Internet network interface configuration parameters

Description

The /etc/confnet.d/inet/interface file is used to store network interface parameters that are used at boot time. Each line of data in the interface file contains enough information to configure an IP transport provider. At boot time, this information is passed to slink(1Mtcp) and ifconfig(1Mtcp) by the script /etc/confnet.d/inet/config.boot.sh.

Files


/dev/ip

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

/etc/confnet.d/netdrivers

/etc/hosts

/usr/bin/uname

Usage

The interface file is maintained by running netcfg(1M). The format of the lines in the interface file is a collection of colon (:) separated fields.
   prefix:unit:address:device:ifconfig_opts:slink_opts
Each field and its defaults (if any) are defined as follows:

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.


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


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

hosts(4tcp), ifconfig(1Mtcp), netcfg(1M), netdrivers(4bnu), netinfo(1Mbnu), slink(1Mtcp), strcf(4tcp)

Examples

The entry:
   lo:0:localhost:/dev/loop:netmask 0xff000000:add_loop
from /etc/confnet.d/inet/interface generates the following line to be used by slink:

slink_opts ip device prefixunit

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.


© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004