Guide to Unix/Commands/Networking

NAME

      ifconfig - configure a network interface

SYNOPSIS

      ifconfig [-v] [-a] [-s] [interface]
      ifconfig [-v] interface [aftype] options | address ...

DESCRIPTION

      Ifconfig  is  used to configure the kernel-resident network interfaces.
      It is used at boot time to set up interfaces as necessary.  After that,
      it  is  usually  only  needed  when  debugging or when system tuning is
      needed.

      If no arguments are given, ifconfig displays the  status  of  the  cur‐
      rently  active interfaces.  If a single interface argument is given, it
      displays the status of the given interface only; if a single  -a  argu‐
      ment  is  given,  it  displays the status of all interfaces, even those
      that are down.  Otherwise, it configures an interface.

Address Families

      If the first argument after the interface name  is  recognized  as  the
      name  of  a  supported  address family, that address family is used for
      decoding and displaying all protocol  addresses.   Currently  supported
      address  families  include  inet  (TCP/IP, default), inet6 (IPv6), ax25
      (AMPR Packet Radio), ddp (Appletalk Phase  2),  ipx  (Novell  IPX)  and
      netrom (AMPR Packet radio).

OPTIONS

      -a     display  all  interfaces  which are currently available, even if
             down

      -s     display a short list (like netstat -i)

      -v     be more verbose for some error conditions

      interface
             The name of the interface.  This is usually a driver  name  fol‐
             lowed  by a unit number, for example eth0 for the first Ethernet
             interface. If your kernel supports  alias  interfaces,  you  can
             specify  them  with  eth0:0 for the first alias of eth0. You can
             use them to assign a second address. To delete an  alias  inter‐
             face use ifconfig eth0:0 down aliases are deleted, if you delete
             the first (primary).

      up     This flag causes the interface to be activated.  It  is  implic‐
             itly specified if an address is assigned to the interface.

      down   This  flag causes the driver for this interface to be shut down.

      [-]arp Enable or disable the use of the ARP protocol on this interface.

      [-]promisc
             Enable  or  disable  the  promiscuous mode of the interface.  If
             selected, all packets on the network will  be  received  by  the
             interface.

      [-]allmulti
             Enable  or  disable all-multicast mode.  If selected, all multi‐
             cast packets on the network will be received by the interface.

      metric N
             This parameter sets the interface metric.

      mtu N  This parameter sets the Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU) of an inter‐
             face.

      dstaddr addr
             Set  the  remote  IP  address for a point-to-point link (such as
             PPP).  This keyword is now obsolete; use the pointopoint keyword
             instead.

      netmask addr
             Set the IP network mask for this interface.  This value defaults
             to the usual class A, B or C network mask (as derived  from  the
             interface IP address), but it can be set to any value.

      add addr/prefixlen
             Add an IPv6 address to an interface.

      del addr/prefixlen
             Remove an IPv6 address from an interface.

      tunnel aa.bb.cc.dd
             Create  a new SIT (IPv6-in-IPv4) device, tunnelling to the given
             destination.

      irq addr
             Set the interrupt line used by this device.  Not all devices can
             dynamically change their IRQ setting.

      io_addr addr
             Set the start address in I/O space for this device.

      mem_start addr
             Set  the  start  address  for shared memory used by this device.
             Only a few devices need this.

      media type
             Set the physical port or medium type to be used by  the  device.
             Not all devices can change this setting, and those that can vary
             in what values  they  support.   Typical  values  for  type  are
             10base2 (thin Ethernet), 10baseT (twisted-pair 10Mbps Ethernet),
             AUI (external transceiver) and so on.  The special  medium  type
             of  auto can be used to tell the driver to auto-sense the media.
             Again, not all drivers can do this.

      [-]broadcast [addr]
             If the address argument is given,  set  the  protocol  broadcast
             address  for  this  interface.   Otherwise,  set  (or clear) the
             IFF_BROADCAST flag for the interface.

      [-]pointopoint [addr]
             This keyword enables the point-to-point mode  of  an  interface,
             meaning  that  it  is  a  direct  link between two machines with
             nobody else listening on it.
             If the address argument is also given, set the protocol  address
             of  the  other  side of the link, just like the obsolete dstaddr
             keyword does.  Otherwise, set or clear the IFF_POINTOPOINT  flag
             for the interface.

      hw class address
             Set the hardware address of this interface, if the device driver
             supports this operation.  The keyword must be  followed  by  the
             name of the hardware class and the printable ASCII equivalent of
             the hardware  address.   Hardware  classes  currently  supported
             include  ether  (Ethernet), ax25 (AMPR AX.25), ARCnet and netrom
             (AMPR NET/ROM).

      multicast
             Set the multicast flag on the interface. This  should  not  nor‐
             mally   be   needed  as  the  drivers  set  the  flag  correctly
             themselves.

      address
             The IP address to be assigned to this interface.

      txqueuelen length
             Set the length of the transmit queue of the device. It is useful
             to  set  this  to  small  values  for slower devices with a high
             latency (modem links, ISDN) to prevent fast bulk transfers  from
             disturbing interactive traffic like telnet too much.

NOTES

      Since kernel release 2.2 there are no explicit interface statistics for
      alias interfaces anymore.  The  statistics  printed  for  the  original
      address  are shared with all alias addresses on the same device. If you
      want per-address statistics you should add  explicit  accounting  rules
      for the address using the ipchains(8) or iptables(8) command.

      Since  net-tools  1.60-4  ifconfig  is printing byte counters and human
      readable counters with IEC 60027-2 units. So 1 KiB are 2^10 byte. Note,
      the  numbers  are  truncated to one decimal (which can by quite a large
      error if you consider 0.1 PiB is 112.589.990.684.262 bytes :)

      Interrupt problems with Ethernet device drivers fail with EAGAIN (SIOC‐
      SIIFLAGS:  Resource temporarily unavailable) it is most likely a inter‐
      rupt conflict.  See  http://www.scyld.com/expert/irq-conflict.html  for
      more information.