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ifconfig.if.5 revision 1.15 
 $NetBSD: ifconfig.if.5,v 1.15 2011/04/07 00:22:59 jym Exp $

 Copyright (c) 1996 Matthew R. Green
 All rights reserved.

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.Dd April 7, 2011
.Dt IFCONFIG.IF 5
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ifconfig.if
.Nd interface-specific configuration files or variables
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
files or variables contain information regarding the configuration
of each network interface.
.Nm
is processed by

a /etc/rc.d/network
at system boot time.

p
For each interface

q Ar nnX
that is to be configured, there should be either an
.Sy ifconfig_nnX
variable in
.Xr rc.conf 5 ,
or an

a /etc/ifconfig.nnX
file
(such as the
.Sy ifconfig_fxp0
variable or the

a /etc/ifconfig.fxp0
file for the
.Sy fxp0
interface).
Only characters allowed in
.Xr sh 1
variables names should be used for
.Ar nnX

o Xr ascii 7
uppercase and lowercase letters, digits, and underscore

c .

p
The variable or file will get evaluated only if the interface exists on
the system.
Multiple lines can be placed in a variable or file, and will be
evaluated sequentially.
In the case of a variable, semicolons may be used instead of
newlines, as described in
.Xr rc.conf 5 .
.Ao backslash Ac Ns Ao newline Ac
sequences in files are ignored, so long logical lines may be
made up of several shorter physical lines.

p
Normally, a line will be evaluated as command line arguments to
.Xr ifconfig 8 .
.Dq Li ifconfig Ar nnX
will be prepended on evaluation.
Arguments with embedded shell metacharacters should be quoted in
.Xr sh 1
style.

p
If the line is equal to
.Dq dhcp ,
.Xr dhcpcd 8
will be started for the interface.

p
If a line is empty, or starts with
.Sq # ,
the line will be ignored as comment.

p
If a line starts with
.Sq ! ,
the rest of line will get evaluated as shell script fragment.
Shell variables declared in

a /etc/rc.d/network
are accessible but may not be modified.
The most useful variable is
.Li $int ,
as it will be bound to the interface being configured with the file.

p
For example, the following illustrates static interface configuration:
d -literal -offset indent # IPv4, with an alias
inet 10.0.1.12 netmask 255.255.255.0 media 100baseTX
inet 10.0.1.13 netmask 255.255.255.255 alias
# let us have IPv6 address on this interface
inet6 2001:db8::1 prefixlen 64 alias
# have subnet router anycast address too
inet6 2001:db8:: prefixlen 64 alias anycast
.Ed

p
The following illustrates dynamic configuration setup with
.Xr dhclient 8
and
.Xr rtsol 8 :
d -literal -offset indent up
# autoconfigure IPv4 address
!dhclient $int
# autoconfigure IPv6 address. Be sure to set $ip6mode to autohost.
!rtsol $int
.Ed

p
The following example sets a network name for a wireless interface
(using quotes to protect special characters in the name),
and starts
.Xr dhcpcd 8 :
d -literal -offset indent ssid 'my network'
dhcp
.Ed

p
The following example is for dynamically-created pseudo interfaces like
.Xr gif 4 .
Earlier versions of

a /etc/rc.d/network
required an explicit
.Sq create
command for such interfaces,
but creation is now handled automatically.
d -literal -offset indent up
# configure IPv6 default route toward the interface
!route add -inet6 default ::1
!route change -inet6 default -ifp $int
.Ed
.Sh FILES

a /etc/rc.d/network
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr rc.conf 5 ,
.Xr ifconfig 8