interface(4) interface(4)
NAME
interface - Internet network interface configuration
parameters
SYNOPSIS
/etc/confnet.d/inet/interface
DESCRIPTION
The interface file is used to store network interface
parameters 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(1M) and ifconfig(1M) by the script
/etc/confnet.d/inet/config.boot.
Files
/dev/ip
/etc/confnet.d/configure
/etc/confnet.d/inet/config.boot.sh
/etc/confnet.d/inet/configure
/etc/confnet.d/netdrivers
/etc/hosts
/usr/bin/uname
USAGE
The interface file can be maintained by running the generic
script /etc/confnet.d/configure -i in interactive mode [see
configure(1M)], which will call the INET-specific script
/etc/confnet.d/inet/configure -i [see configure_inet(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(1M)] 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.
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 1
interface(4) interface(4)
This field can not 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(4)] 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
that 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(4)] through the
/etc/confnet.d/configure script. This field can
not 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(1M).
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 Is the result of concatenating
prefix and unit. prefixunit
result may be used as the
interface parameter given to
ifconfig and netstat.
converted_address Is the /etc/hosts value for
the address field.
ifconfig_opts Can be null and has no
default, but it is
traditionally populated with
-trailers (needed by transport
providers). See ifconfig(1M)
and configure_inet(1M). A
case where ifconfig_opts is
null is when the transport
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 2
interface(4) interface(4)
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(4)]
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
where 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.
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.
REFERENCES
configure(1M), configure_inet(1M), hosts(4), ifconfig(1M),
netdrivers(4), netinfo(1M), slink(1M), strcf(4)
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 3