FreeBSD Manual Pages
IFCONFIG(8) BSD System Manager's Manual IFCONFIG(8) NAME ifconfig -- configure network interface parameters SYNOPSIS ifconfig [-L] [-k] [-m] [-n] interface [create] [address_family] [address [dest_address]] [parameters] ifconfig interface destroy ifconfig -a [-L] [-d] [-m] [-u] [-v] [address_family] ifconfig -l [-d] [-u] [address_family] ifconfig [-L] [-d] [-k] [-m] [-u] [-v] [-C] ifconfig [-g groupname] DESCRIPTION The ifconfig utility is used to assign an address to a network interface and/or configure network interface parameters. The ifconfig utility must be used at boot time to define the network address of each interface present on a machine; it may also be used at a later time to redefine an interface's address or other operating parameters. The following options are available: address For the DARPA-Internet family, the address is either a host name present in the host name data base, hosts(5), or a DARPA Internet address expressed in the Internet standard "dot notation". It is also possible to use the CIDR notation (also known as the slash notation) to include the netmask. That is, one can specify an address like 192.168.0.1/16. For the "inet6" family, it is also possible to specify the prefix length using the slash notation, like ::1/128. See the prefixlen parameter below for more information. The link-level ("link") address is specified as a series of colon-separated hex digits. This can be used to e.g. set a new MAC address on an ethernet interface, though the mechanism used is not ethernet-specific. If the interface is already up when this option is used, it will be briefly brought down and then brought back up again in order to ensure that the receive filter in the underlying ethernet hardware is properly reprogrammed. address_family Specify the address family which affects interpretation of the remaining parameters. Since an interface can receive transmis- sions in differing protocols with different naming schemes, spec- ifying the address family is recommended. The address or proto- col families currently supported are "inet", "inet6", "atalk", "ipx", and "link". The default is "inet". "ether" and "lladdr" are synonyms for "link". dest_address Specify the address of the correspondent on the other end of a point to point link. interface This parameter is a string of the form "name unit", for example, "ed0". groupname List the interfaces in the given group. The following parameters may be set with ifconfig: add Another name for the alias parameter. Introduced for compatibil- ity with BSD/OS. alias Establish an additional network address for this interface. This is sometimes useful when changing network numbers, and one wishes to accept packets addressed to the old interface. If the address is on the same subnet as the first network address for this in- terface, a non-conflicting netmask must be given. Usually 0xffffffff is most appropriate. -alias Remove the network address specified. This would be used if you incorrectly specified an alias, or it was no longer needed. If you have incorrectly set an NS address having the side effect of specifying the host portion, removing all NS addresses will allow you to respecify the host portion. anycast (Inet6 only.) Specify that the address configured is an anycast address. Based on the current specification, only routers may configure anycast addresses. Anycast address will not be used as source address of any of outgoing IPv6 packets. arp Enable the use of the Address Resolution Protocol (arp(4)) in mapping between network level addresses and link level addresses (default). This is currently implemented for mapping between DARPA Internet addresses and IEEE 802 48-bit MAC addresses (Eth- ernet, FDDI, and Token Ring addresses). -arp Disable the use of the Address Resolution Protocol (arp(4)). staticarp If the Address Resolution Protocol is enabled, the host will only reply to requests for its addresses, and will never send any re- quests. -staticarp If the Address Resolution Protocol is enabled, the host will per- form normally, sending out requests and listening for replies. broadcast (Inet only.) Specify the address to use to represent broadcasts to the network. The default broadcast address is the address with a host part of all 1's. debug Enable driver dependent debugging code; usually, this turns on extra console error logging. -debug Disable driver dependent debugging code. promisc Put interface into permanently promiscuous mode. -promisc Disable permanently promiscuous mode. delete Another name for the -alias parameter. down Mark an interface "down". When an interface is marked "down", the system will not attempt to transmit messages through that in- terface. If possible, the interface will be reset to disable re- ception as well. This action does not automatically disable routes using the interface. group group-name Assign the interface to a "group". Any interface can be in mul- tiple groups. Cloned interfaces are members of their interface family group by default. For example, a PPP interface such as ppp0 is a member of the PPP interface family group, ppp. -group group-name Remove the interface from the given "group". eui64 (Inet6 only.) Fill interface index (lowermost 64bit of an IPv6 address) automatically. ipdst This is used to specify an Internet host who is willing to re- ceive IP packets encapsulating IPX packets bound for a remote network. An apparent point to point link is constructed, and the address specified will be taken as the IPX address and network of the destination. maclabel label If Mandatory Access Control support is enabled in the kernel, set the MAC label to label. media type If the driver supports the media selection system, set the media type of the interface to type. Some interfaces support the mutu- ally exclusive use of one of several different physical media connectors. For example, a 10Mbit/s Ethernet interface might support the use of either AUI or twisted pair connectors. Set- ting the media type to 10base5/AUI would change the currently ac- tive connector to the AUI port. Setting it to 10baseT/UTP would activate twisted pair. Refer to the interfaces' driver specific documentation or man page for a complete list of the available types. mediaopt opts If the driver supports the media selection system, set the speci- fied media options on the interface. The opts argument is a comma delimited list of options to apply to the interface. Refer to the interfaces' driver specific man page for a complete list of available options. -mediaopt opts If the driver supports the media selection system, disable the specified media options on the interface. mode mode If the driver supports the media selection system, set the speci- fied operating mode on the interface to mode. For IEEE 802.11 wireless interfaces that support multiple operating modes this directive is used to select between 802.11a (11a), 802.11b (11b), and 802.11g (11g) operating modes. inst minst, instance minst Set the media instance to minst. This is useful for devices which have multiple physical layer interfaces (PHYs). name name Set the interface name to name. rxcsum, txcsum If the driver supports user-configurable checksum offloading, en- able receive (or transmit) checksum offloading on the interface. Some drivers may not be able to enable these flags independently of each other, so setting one may also set the other. The driver will offload as much checksum work as it can reliably support, the exact level of offloading varies between drivers. -rxcsum, -txcsum If the driver supports user-configurable checksum offloading, disable receive (or transmit) checksum offloading on the inter- face. These settings may not always be independent of each other. tso If the driver supports tcp(4) segmentation offloading, enable TSO on the interface. Some drivers may not be able to support TSO for ip(4) and ip6(4) packets, so they may enable only one of them. -tso If the driver supports tcp(4) segmentation offloading, disable TSO on the interface. It will always disable TSO for ip(4) and ip6(4). lro If the driver supports tcp(4) large receive offloading, enable LRO on the interface. -lro If the driver supports tcp(4) large receive offloading, disable LRO on the interface. wol, wol_ucast, wol_mcast, wol_magic Enable Wake On Lan (WOL) support, if available. WOL is a facil- ity whereby a machine in a low power state may be woken in re- sponse to a received packet. There are three types of packets that may wake a system: ucast (directed solely to the machine's mac address), mcast (directed to a broadcast or multicast ad- dress), or magic (unicast or multicast frames with a ``magic con- tents''). Not all devices support WOL, those that do indicate the mechanisms they support in their capabilities. wol is a syn- onym for enabling all available WOL mechanisms. To disable WOL use -wol. vlanmtu, vlanhwtag If the driver offers user-configurable VLAN support, enable re- ception of extended frames or tag processing in hardware, respec- tively. Note that this must be issued on a physical interface associated with vlan(4), not on a vlan(4) interface itself. -vlanmtu, -vlanhwtag If the driver offers user-configurable VLAN support, disable re- ception of extended frames or tag processing in hardware, respec- tively. polling Turn on polling(4) feature and disable interrupts on the inter- face, if driver supports this mode. -polling Turn off polling(4) feature and enable interrupt mode on the in- terface. create Create the specified network pseudo-device. If the interface is given without a unit number, try to create a new device with an arbitrary unit number. If creation of an arbitrary device is successful, the new device name is printed to standard output un- less the interface is renamed or destroyed in the same ifconfig invocation. destroy Destroy the specified network pseudo-device. plumb Another name for the create parameter. Included for Solaris com- patibility. unplumb Another name for the destroy parameter. Included for Solaris compatibility. metric n Set the routing metric of the interface to n, default 0. The routing metric is used by the routing protocol (routed(8)). Higher metrics have the effect of making a route less favorable; metrics are counted as additional hops to the destination network or host. mtu n Set the maximum transmission unit of the interface to n, default is interface specific. The MTU is used to limit the size of packets that are transmitted on an interface. Not all interfaces support setting the MTU, and some interfaces have range restric- tions. netmask mask (Inet only.) Specify how much of the address to reserve for sub- dividing networks into sub-networks. The mask includes the net- work part of the local address and the subnet part, which is taken from the host field of the address. The mask can be speci- fied as a single hexadecimal number with a leading `0x', with a dot-notation Internet address, or with a pseudo-network name listed in the network table networks(5). The mask contains 1's for the bit positions in the 32-bit address which are to be used for the network and subnet parts, and 0's for the host part. The mask should contain at least the standard network portion, and the subnet field should be contiguous with the network portion. The netmask can also be specified in CIDR notation after the ad- dress. See the address option above for more information. prefixlen len (Inet6 only.) Specify that len bits are reserved for subdividing networks into sub-networks. The len must be integer, and for syntactical reason it must be between 0 to 128. It is almost al- ways 64 under the current IPv6 assignment rule. If the parameter is omitted, 64 is used. The prefix can also be specified using the slash notation after the address. See the address option above for more information. range netrange Under appletalk, set the interface to respond to a netrange of the form startnet-endnet. Appletalk uses this scheme instead of netmasks though FreeBSD implements it internally as a set of net- masks. remove Another name for the -alias parameter. Introduced for compati- bility with BSD/OS. phase The argument following this specifies the version (phase) of the Appletalk network attached to the interface. Values of 1 or 2 are permitted. link[0-2] Enable special processing of the link level of the interface. These three options are interface specific in actual effect, how- ever, they are in general used to select special modes of opera- tion. An example of this is to enable SLIP compression, or to select the connector type for some Ethernet cards. Refer to the man page for the specific driver for more information. -link[0-2] Disable special processing at the link level with the specified interface. monitor Put the interface in monitor mode. No packets are transmitted, and received packets are discarded after bpf(4) processing. -monitor Take the interface out of monitor mode. up Mark an interface "up". This may be used to enable an interface after an "ifconfig down". It happens automatically when setting the first address on an interface. If the interface was reset when previously marked down, the hardware will be re-initialized. The following parameters are specific to IEEE 802.11 wireless interfaces: apbridge When operating as an access point, pass packets between wireless clients directly (default). To instead let them pass up through the system and be forwarded using some other mechanism, use -apbridge. Disabling the internal bridging is useful when traf- fic is to be processed with packet filtering. authmode mode Set the desired authentication mode in infrastructure mode. Not all adaptors support all modes. The set of valid modes is none, open, shared (shared key), 8021x (IEEE 802.1x), and wpa (IEEE WPA/WPA2/802.11i). The 8021x and wpa modes are only useful when using an authentication service (a supplicant for client opera- tion or an authenticator when operating as an access point). Modes are case insensitive. bgscan Enable background scanning when operating as a station. Back- ground scanning is a technique whereby a station associated to an access point will temporarily leave the channel to scan for neighboring stations. This allows a station to maintain a cache of nearby access points so that roaming between access points can be done without a lengthy scan operation. Background scanning is done only when a station is not busy and any outbound traffic will cancel a scan operation. Background scanning should never cause packets to be lost though there may be some small latency if outbound traffic interrupts a scan operation. By default background scanning is enabled if the device is capable. To dis- able background scanning, use -bgscan. Background scanning is controlled by the bgscanidle and bgscanintvl parameters. Back- ground scanning must be enabled for roaming; this is an artifact of the current implementation and may not be required in the fu- ture. bgscanidle idletime Set the minimum time a station must be idle (not transmitting or receiving frames) before a background scan is initiated. The idletime parameter is specified in milliseconds. By default a station must be idle at least 250 milliseconds before a back- ground scan is initiated. The idle time may not be set to less than 100 milliseconds. bgscanintvl interval Set the interval at which background scanning is attempted. The interval parameter is specified in seconds. By default a back- ground scan is considered every 300 seconds (5 minutes). The interval may not be set to less than 15 seconds. bintval interval Set the interval at which beacon frames are sent when operating in ad-hoc or ap mode. The interval parameter is specified in TU's (1024 usecs). By default beacon frames are transmitted ev- ery 100 TU's. bmissthreshold count Set the number of consecutive missed beacons at which the station will attempt to roam (i.e., search for a new access point). The count parameter must be in the range 1 to 255; though the upper bound may be reduced according to device capabilities. The de- fault threshold is 7 consecutive missed beacons; but this may be overridden by the device driver. Another name for the bmissthreshold parameter is bmiss. bssid address Specify the MAC address of the access point to use when operating as a station in a BSS network. This overrides any automatic se- lection done by the system. To disable a previously selected ac- cess point, supply any, none, or - for the address. This option is useful when more than one access point uses the same SSID. Another name for the bssid parameter is ap. burst Enable packet bursting. Packet bursting is a transmission tech- nique whereby the wireless medium is acquired once to send multi- ple frames and the interframe spacing is reduced. This technique can significantly increase throughput by reducing transmission overhead. Packet bursting is supported by the 802.11e QoS speci- fication and some devices that do not support QoS may still be capable. By default packet bursting is enabled if a device is capable of doing it. To disable packet bursting, use -burst. chanlist channels Set the desired channels to use when scanning for access points, neighbors in an IBSS network, or looking for unoccupied channels when operating as an access point. The set of channels is speci- fied as a comma-separated list with each element in the list rep- resenting either a single channel number or a range of the form "a-b". Channel numbers must be in the range 1 to 255 and be per- missible according to the operating characteristics of the de- vice. channel number Set a single desired channel. Channels range from 1 to 255, but the exact selection available depends on the region your adaptor was manufactured for. Setting the channel to 0, any, or - will give you the default for your adaptor. Some adaptors ignore this setting unless you are in ad-hoc mode. Alternatively the fre- quency, in megahertz, may be specified instead of the channel number. When there are several ways to use a channel the channel num- ber/frequency may be appended with attributes to clarify. For example, if a device is capable of operating on channel 6 with 802.11n and 802.11g then one can specify that g-only use should be used by specifying ``6:g''. Similarly the channel width can be specified by appending it with ``/''; e.g. ``6/40'' specifies a 40MHz wide channel, These attributes can be combined as in: ``6:ht/40''. The full set of flags specified following a `:'' are: a (802.11a), b (802.11b), d (Atheros Dynamic Turbo mode), g (802.11g), h or n (802.11n aka HT), s (Atheros Static Turbo mode), and t (Atheros Dynamic Turbo mode, or appended to ``st'' and ``dt''). The full set of channel widths following a '/' are: 5 (5MHz aka quarter-rate channel), 10 (10MHz aka half-rate chan- nel), 20 (20MHz mostly for use in specifying ht20), and 40 (40MHz mostly for use in specifying ht40), In addition, a 40MHz HT chan- nel specification may include the location of the extension chan- nel by appending ``+'' or ``-'' for above and below, respec- tively; e.g. ``2437:ht/40+'' specifies 40MHz wide HT operation with the center channel at frequency 2437 and the extension chan- nel above. doth Enable inclusion of an 802.11h country information element in beacon frames transmitted when operating as an access point. By default 802.11h is enabled if the device is capable. To disable 802.11h use -doth. deftxkey index Set the default key to use for transmission. Typically this is only set when using WEP encryption. Note that you must set a de- fault transmit key for the system to know which key to use in en- crypting outbound traffic. The weptxkey is an alias for this re- quest; it is provided for backwards compatibility. dtimperiod period Set the DTIM period for transmitting buffered multicast data frames when operating in ap mode. The period specifies the num- ber of beacon intervals between DTIM and must be in the range 1 to 15. By default DTIM is 1 (i.e., DTIM occurs at each beacon). dturbo Enable the use of Atheros Dynamic Turbo mode when communicating with another Dynamic Turbo-capable station. Dynamic Turbo mode is an Atheros-specific mechanism by which stations switch between normal 802.11 operation and a ``boosted'' mode in which a 40MHz wide channel is used for communication. Stations using Dynamic Turbo mode operate boosted only when the channel is free of non- dturbo stations; when a non-dturbo station is identified on the channel all stations will automatically drop back to normal oper- ation. By default, Dynamic Turbo mode is not enabled, even if the device is capable. Note that turbo mode (dynamic or static) is only allowed on some channels depending on the regulatory con- straints; use the list chan command to identify the channels where turbo mode may be used. To disable Dynamic Turbo mode use -dturbo. fragthreshold length Set the threshold for which transmitted frames are broken into fragments. The length argument is the frame size in bytes and must be in the range 256 to 2346. Setting length to 2346, any, or - disables transmit fragmentation. Not all adaptors honor the fragmentation threshold. hidessid When operating as an access point, do not broadcast the SSID in beacon frames or respond to probe request frames unless they are directed to the ap (i.e., they include the ap's SSID). By de- fault, the SSID is included in beacon frames and undirected probe request frames are answered. To re-enable the broadcast of the SSID etc., use -hidessid. ff Enable the use of Atheros Fast Frames when communicating with an- other Fast Frames-capable station. Fast Frames are an encapsula- tion technique by which two 802.3 frames are transmitted in a single 802.11 frame. This can noticeably improve throughput but requires that the receiving station understand how to decapsulate the frame. Fast frame use is negotiated using the Atheros 802.11 vendor-specific protocol extension so enabling use is safe when communicating with non-Atheros devices. By default, use of fast frames is enabled if the device is capable. To explicitly dis- able fast frames, use -ff. list active Display the list of channels available for use taking into ac- count any restrictions set with the chanlist directive. See the description of list chan for more information. list caps Display the adaptor's capabilities, including the operating modes supported. list chan Display the list of channels available for use. Channels are shown with their IEEE channel number, equivalent frequency, and usage modes. Channels identified as `11g' are also usable in `11b' mode. Channels identified as `11a Turbo' may be used only for Atheros' Static Turbo mode (specified with mediaopt turbo). Channels marked with a `*' have a regulatory constraint that they be passively scanned. This means a station is not permitted to transmit on the channel until it identifies the channel is being used for 802.11 communication; typically by hearing a beacon frame from an access point operating on the channel. list freq is another way of requesting this information. By default a com- pacted list of channels is displayed; if the -v option is speci- fied then all channels are shown. list mac Display the current MAC Access Control List state. Each address is prefixed with a character that indicates the current policy applied to it: `+' indicates the address is allowed access, `-' indicates the address is denied access, `*' indicates the address is present but the current policy open (so the ACL is not con- sulted). list scan Display the access points and/or ad-hoc neighbors located in the vicinity. The -v flag may be used to display long SSIDs. -v also causes received information elements to be displayed symbol- ically. This information may be updated automatically by the adaptor and/or with a scan request or through background scan- ning. The list ap command is another way of requesting this in- formation. list sta When operating as an access point display the stations that are currently associated. When operating in ad-hoc mode display sta- tions identified as neighbors in the IBSS. When operating in station mode display the access point. Capabilities advertised by the stations are described under the scan request. Depending on the capabilities of the stations the following flags can be included in the output: A Authorized. Indicates that the station is permitted to send/receive data frames. E Extended Rate Phy (ERP). Indicates that the station is op- erating in an 802.11g network using extended transmit rates. H High Throughput (HT). Indicates that the station is using MCS to send/receive frames. P Power Save. Indicates that the station is operating in power save mode. Q Quality of Service (QoS). Indicates that the station is us- ing QoS encapsulation for data frame. QoS encapsulation is enabled only when WME mode is enabled. By default information elements received from associated stations are displayed in a short form; the -v flag causes this informa- tion to be displayed symbolically. list wme Display the current parameters to use when operating in WME mode. When WME mode is enabled for an adaptor this information will be displayed with the regular status; this command is mostly useful for examining parameters when WME mode is disabled. See the de- scription of the wme directive for information on the various pa- rameters. mcastrate rate Set the rate for transmitting multicast/broadcast frames. Rates are specified as megabits/second in decimal; e.g. 5.5 for 5.5 Mb/s. This rate should be valid for the current operating condi- tions; if an invalid rate is specified drivers are free to chose an appropriate rate. powersave Enable powersave operation. When operating as a client, the sta- tion will conserve power by periodically turning off the radio and listening for messages from the access point telling it there are packets waiting. The station must then retrieve the packets. Not all devices support power save operation as a client. The 802.11 specification requires that all access points support power save but some drivers do not. Use -powersave to disable powersave operation when operating as a client. powersavesleep sleep Set the desired max powersave sleep time in TU's (1024 usecs). By default the max powersave sleep time is 100 TU's. protmode technique For interfaces operating in 802.11g, use the specified technique for protecting OFDM frames in a mixed 11b/11g network. The set of valid techniques is off, cts (CTS to self), and rtscts (RTS/CTS). Technique names are case insensitive. Not all de- vices support cts as a protection technique. pureg When operating as an access point in 802.11g mode allow only 11g- capable stations to associate (11b-only stations are not permit- ted to associate). To allow both 11g and 11b-only stations to associate, use -pureg. roaming mode When operating as a station, control how the system will behave when communication with the current access point is broken. The mode argument may be one of device (leave it to the hardware de- vice to decide), auto (handle either in the device or the operat- ing system--as appropriate), manual (do nothing until explicitly instructed). By default, the device is left to handle this if it is capable; otherwise, the operating system will automatically attempt to reestablish communication. Manual mode is used by ap- plications such as wpa_supplicant(8) that want to control the se- lection of an access point. roam:rssi11a rssi Set the threshold for controlling roaming when operating in an 802.11a BSS. The rssi parameter specifies the receive signal strength in dBm units at which roaming should be considered. If the current rssi drops below this setting and background scanning is enabled, then the system will check if a more desirable access point is available and switch over to it. The current scan cache contents are used if they are considered valid according to the scanvalid parameter; otherwise a background scan operation is triggered before any selection occurs. By default rssi is set to 7 dBm. roam:rssi11b rssi Set the threshold for controlling roaming when operating in an 802.11b-only BSS. See roam:rssi11a for a description of this pa- rameter. By default rssi is set to 7 dBm. roam:rssi11g rssi Set the threshold for controlling roaming when operating in a (mixed) 802.11g BSS. See roam:rssi11a for a description of this parameter. By default rssi is set to 7 dBm. roam:rate11a rate Set the threshold for controlling roaming when operating in an 802.11a BSS. The rate parameter specifies the transmit rate in megabits at which roaming should be considered. If the current transmit rate drops below this setting and background scanning is enabled, then the system will check if a more desirable access point is available and switch over to it. The current scan cache contents are used if they are considered valid according to the scanvalid parameter; otherwise a background scan operation is triggered before any selection occurs. By default rate is set to 12 Mb/s. roam:rate11b rate Set the threshold for controlling roaming when operating in an 802.11b-only BSS. See roam:rate11a for a description of this pa- rameter. By default rate is set to 1 Mb/s. roam:rate11g rate Set the threshold for controlling roaming when operating in a (mixed) 802.11g BSS. See roam:rate11a for a description of this parameter. By default rate is set to 5 Mb/s. rtsthreshold length Set the threshold for which transmitted frames are preceded by transmission of an RTS control frame. The length argument is the frame size in bytes and must be in the range 1 to 2346. Setting length to 2346, any, or - disables transmission of RTS frames. Not all adaptors support setting the RTS threshold. ssid ssid Set the desired Service Set Identifier (aka network name). The SSID is a string up to 32 characters in length and may be speci- fied as either a normal string or in hexadecimal when preceded by `0x'. Additionally, the SSID may be cleared by setting it to `-'. scan Initiate a scan of neighboring stations, wait for it to complete, and display all stations found. Only the super-user can initiate a scan. Depending on the capabilities of the APs, the following flags can be included in the output: A Channel Agility. Indicates that the station support channel hopping as described by the IEEE 802.11b specification. B Packet Binary Convolution Code (PBCC). A modulation alter- native to the standard OFDM method. C Pollreq c Pollable D Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSSOFDM). Indicates the the station supports DSSS modulation. E Extended Service Set (ESS). Indicates that the station is part of an infrastructure network (in contrast to an IBSS/ad-hoc network). I IBSS/ad-hoc network. Indicates that the station is part of an ad-hoc network (in contrast to an ESS network). P Privacy. Data confidentiality is required for all data frames exchanged within the BSS. This means that this BSS requires the station to use cryptographic means such as WEP, TKIP or AES-CCMP to encrypt/decrypt data frames being ex- changed with others. R Robust Security Network (RSN). Indicates that the station supports the IEEE 802.11i authentication and key management protocol. S Short Preamble. Indicates that the network is using short preambles (defined in 802.11b High Rate/DSSS PHY, short pre- amble utilizes a 56 bit sync field in contrast to a 128 bit field used in long preamble mode). s Short slot time. Indicates that the network is using a short slot time. Interesting information elements captured from the neighboring stations are displayed at the end of each row. Possible elements are: WME (station supports WME), WPA (station supports WPA), WPS (station supports WPS), RSN (station supports 802.11i/RSN), HT (station supports 802.11n/HT communication), ATH (station sup- ports Atheros protocol extensions), VEN (station supports unknown vendor-specific extensions). If the -v flag is used the informa- tion element contents will be shown. The list scan request can be used to show recent scan results without initiating a new scan. The -v flag may be used to prevent the shortening of long SSIDs. scanvalid threshold Set the maximum time the scan cache contents are considered valid; i.e. will be used without first triggering a scan opera- tion to refresh the data. The threshold parameter is specified in seconds and defaults to 60 seconds. The minimum setting for threshold is 10 seconds. One should take care setting this threshold; if it is set too low then attempts to roam to another access point may trigger unnecessary background scan operations. stationname name Set the name of this station. The station name is not part of the IEEE 802.11 protocol though some interfaces support it. As such it only seems to be meaningful to identical or virtually identical equipment. Setting the station name is identical in syntax to setting the SSID. txpower power Set the power used to transmit frames. The power argument is specified in .5 dBm units. Out of range values are truncated. Typically only a few discreet power settings are available and the driver will use the setting closest to the specified value. Not all adaptors support changing the transmit power. wepmode mode Set the desired WEP mode. Not all adaptors support all modes. The set of valid modes is off, on, and mixed. The mixed mode ex- plicitly tells the adaptor to allow association with access points which allow both encrypted and unencrypted traffic. On these adaptors, on means that the access point must only allow encrypted connections. On other adaptors, on is generally an- other name for mixed. Modes are case insensitive. weptxkey index Set the WEP key to be used for transmission. This is the same as setting the default transmission key with deftxkey. wepkey key|index:key Set the selected WEP key. If an index is not given, key 1 is set. A WEP key will be either 5 or 13 characters (40 or 104 bits) depending of the local network and the capabilities of the adaptor. It may be specified either as a plain string or as a string of hexadecimal digits preceded by `0x'. For maximum portability, hex keys are recommended; the mapping of text keys to WEP encryption is usually driver-specific. In particular, the Windows drivers do this mapping differently to FreeBSD. A key may be cleared by setting it to `-'. If WEP is supported then there are at least four keys. Some adaptors support more than four keys. If that is the case, then the first four keys (1-4) will be the standard temporary keys and any others will be adap- tor specific keys such as permanent keys stored in NVRAM. Note that you must set a default transmit key with deftxkey for the system to know which key to use in encrypting outbound traf- fic. wme Enable Wireless Multimedia Extensions (WME) support, if avail- able, for the specified interface. WME is a subset of the IEEE 802.11e standard to support the efficient communication of real- time and multimedia data. To disable WME support, use -wme. The following parameters are meaningful only when WME support is in use. Parameters are specified per-AC (Access Category) and split into those that are used by a station when acting as an ac- cess point and those for client stations in the BSS. The latter are received from the access point and may not be changed (at the station). The following Access Categories are recognized: AC_BE (or BE) best effort delivery, AC_BK (or BK) background traffic, AC_VI (or VI) video traffic, AC_VO (or VO) voice traffic. AC parameters are case-insensitive. Traffic classification is done in the operating system using the vlan priority associated with data frames or the ToS (Type of Service) indication in IP- encapsulated frames. If neither information is present, traffic is assigned to the Best Effort (BE) category. ack ac Set the ACK policy for QoS transmissions by the local station; this controls whether or not data frames trans- mitted by a station require an ACK response from the re- ceiving station. To disable waiting for an ACK use -ack. This parameter is applied only to the local station. acm ac Enable the Admission Control Mandatory (ACM) mechanism for transmissions by the local station. To disable the ACM use -acm. On stations in a BSS this parameter is read-only and indicates the setting received from the ac- cess point. NB: ACM is not supported right now. aifs ac count Set the Arbitration Inter Frame Spacing (AIFS) channel access parameter to use for transmissions by the local station. On stations in a BSS this parameter is read- only and indicates the setting received from the access point. cwmin ac count Set the CWmin channel access parameter to use for trans- missions by the local station. On stations in a BSS this parameter is read-only and indicates the setting received from the access point. cwmax ac count Set the CWmax channel access parameter to use for trans- missions by the local station. On stations in a BSS this parameter is read-only and indicates the setting received from the access point. txoplimit ac limit Set the Transmission Opportunity Limit channel access pa- rameter to use for transmissions by the local station. This parameter defines an interval of time when a WME station has the right to initiate transmissions onto the wireless medium. On stations in a BSS this parameter is read-only and indicates the setting received from the ac- cess point. bss:aifs ac count Set the AIFS channel access parameter to send to stations in a BSS. This parameter is meaningful only when operat- ing in ap mode. bss:cwmin ac count Set the CWmin channel access parameter to send to sta- tions in a BSS. This parameter is meaningful only when operating in ap mode. bss:cwmax ac count Set the CWmax channel access parameter to send to sta- tions in a BSS. This parameter is meaningful only when operating in ap mode. bss:txoplimit ac limit Set the TxOpLimit channel access parameter to send to stations in a BSS. This parameter is meaningful only when operating in ap mode. The following parameters support an optional access control list feature available with some adaptors when operating in ap mode; see wlan_acl(4). This facility allows an access point to accept/deny association requests based on the MAC address of the station. Note that this feature does not significantly enhance security as MAC address spoofing is easy to do. mac:add address Add the specified MAC address to the database. Depending on the policy setting association requests from the specified station will be allowed or denied. mac:allow Set the ACL policy to permit association only by stations regis- tered in the database. mac:del address Delete the specified MAC address from the database. mac:deny Set the ACL policy to deny association only by stations regis- tered in the database. mac:kick address Force the specified station to be deauthenticated. This typi- cally is done to block a station after updating the address data- base. mac:open Set the ACL policy to allow all stations to associate. mac:flush Delete all entries in the database. The following parameters are for compatibility with other systems: nwid ssid Another name for the ssid parameter. Included for NetBSD compat- ibility. station name Another name for the stationname parameter. Included for BSD/OS compatibility. wep Another way of saying wepmode on. Included for BSD/OS compati- bility. -wep Another way of saying wepmode off. Included for BSD/OS compati- bility. nwkey key Another way of saying: "wepmode on weptxkey 1 wepkey 1:key wepkey 2:- wepkey 3:- wepkey 4:-". Included for NetBSD compatibility. nwkey n:k1,k2,k3,k4 Another way of saying "wepmode on weptxkey n wepkey 1:k1 wepkey 2:k2 wepkey 3:k3 wepkey 4:k4". Included for NetBSD compatibil- ity. -nwkey Another way of saying wepmode off. Included for NetBSD compati- bility. The following parameters are specific to bridge interfaces: addm interface Add the interface named by interface as a member of the bridge. The interface is put into promiscuous mode so that it can receive every packet sent on the network. deletem interface Remove the interface named by interface from the bridge. Promis- cuous mode is disabled on the interface when it is removed from the bridge. maxaddr size Set the size of the bridge address cache to size. The default is 100 entries. timeout seconds Set the timeout of address cache entries to seconds seconds. If seconds is zero, then address cache entries will not be expired. The default is 240 seconds. addr Display the addresses that have been learned by the bridge. static interface-name address Add a static entry into the address cache pointing to interface-name. Static entries are never aged out of the cache or re-placed, even if the address is seen on a different inter- face. deladdr address Delete address from the address cache. flush Delete all dynamically-learned addresses from the address cache. flushall Delete all addresses, including static addresses, from the ad- dress cache. discover interface Mark an interface as a "discovering" interface. When the bridge has no address cache entry (either dynamic or static) for the destination address of a packet, the bridge will forward the packet to all member interfaces marked as "discovering". This is the default for all interfaces added to a bridge. -discover interface Clear the "discovering" attribute on a member interface. For packets without the "discovering" attribute, the only packets forwarded on the interface are broadcast or multicast packets and packets for which the destination address is known to be on the interface's segment. learn interface Mark an interface as a "learning" interface. When a packet ar- rives on such an interface, the source address of the packet is entered into the address cache as being a destination address on the interface's segment. This is the default for all interfaces added to a bridge. -learn interface Clear the "learning" attribute on a member interface. sticky interface Mark an interface as a "sticky" interface. Dynamically learned address entries are treated at static once entered into the cache. Sticky entries are never aged out of the cache or re- placed, even if the address is seen on a different interface. -sticky interface Clear the "sticky" attribute on a member interface. private interface Mark an interface as a "private" interface. A private interface does not forward any traffic to any other port that is also a private interface. -private interface Clear the "private" attribute on a member interface. span interface Add the interface named by interface as a span port on the bridge. Span ports transmit a copy of every frame received by the bridge. This is most useful for snooping a bridged network passively on another host connected to one of the span ports of the bridge. -span interface Delete the interface named by interface from the list of span ports of the bridge. stp interface Enable Spanning Tree protocol on interface. The if_bridge(4) driver has support for the IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree protocol (STP). Spanning Tree is used to detect and remove loops in a network topology. -stp interface Disable Spanning Tree protocol on interface. This is the default for all interfaces added to a bridge. edge interface Set interface as an edge port. An edge port connects directly to end stations cannot create bridging loops in the network, this allows it to transition straight to forwarding. -edge interface Disable edge status on interface. autoedge interface Allow interface to automatically detect edge status. This is the default for all interfaces added to a bridge. -autoedge interface Disable automatic edge status on interface. ptp interface Set the interface as a point to point link. This is required for straight transitions to forwarding and should be enabled on a di- rect link to another RSTP capable switch. -ptp interface Disable point to point link status on interface. This should be disabled for a half duplex link and for an interface connected to a shared network segment, like a hub or a wireless network. autoptp interface Automatically detect the point to point status on interface by checking the full duplex link status. This is the default for interfaces added to the bridge. -autoptp interface Disable automatic point to point link detection on interface. maxage seconds Set the time that a Spanning Tree protocol configuration is valid. The default is 20 seconds. The minimum is 6 seconds and the maximum is 40 seconds. fwddelay seconds Set the time that must pass before an interface begins forwarding packets when Spanning Tree is enabled. The default is 15 sec- onds. The minimum is 4 seconds and the maximum is 30 seconds. hellotime seconds Set the time between broadcasting of Spanning Tree protocol con- figuration messages. The hello time may only be changed when op- erating in legacy stp mode. The default is 2 seconds. The mini- mum is 1 second and the maximum is 2 seconds. priority value Set the bridge priority for Spanning Tree. The default is 32768. The minimum is 0 and the maximum is 61440. proto value Set the Spanning Tree protocol. The default is rstp. The avail- able options are stp and rstp. holdcnt value Set the transmit hold count for Spanning Tree. This is the num- ber of packets transmitted before being rate limited. The de- fault is 6. The minimum is 1 and the maximum is 10. ifpriority interface value Set the Spanning Tree priority of interface to value. The de- fault is 128. The minimum is 0 and the maximum is 240. ifpathcost interface value Set the Spanning Tree path cost of interface to value. The de- fault is calculated from the link speed. To change a previously selected path cost back to automatic, set the cost to 0. The minimum is 1 and the maximum is 200000000. ifmaxaddr interface size Set the maximum number of hosts allowed from an interface, pack- ets with unknown source addresses are dropped until an existing host cache entry expires or is removed. Set to 0 to disable. The following parameters are specific to lagg interfaces: laggport interface Add the interface named by interface as a port of the aggregation interface. -laggport interface Remove the interface named by interface from the aggregation in- terface. laggproto proto Set the aggregation protocol. The default is failover. The available options are failover, fec, lacp, loadbalance, roundrobin and none. The following parameters are specific to IP tunnel interfaces, gif(4): tunnel src_addr dest_addr Configure the physical source and destination address for IP tun- nel interfaces. The arguments src_addr and dest_addr are inter- preted as the outer source/destination for the encapsulating IPv4/IPv6 header. -tunnel Unconfigure the physical source and destination address for IP tunnel interfaces previously configured with tunnel. deletetunnel Another name for the -tunnel parameter. The following parameters are specific to GRE tunnel interfaces, gre(4): grekey key Configure the GRE key to be used for outgoing packets. Note that gre(4) will always accept GRE packets with invalid or absent keys. This command will result in a four byte MTU reduction on the interface. The following parameters are specific to pfsync(4) interfaces: maxupd n Set the maximum number of updates for a single state which can be collapsed into one. This is an 8-bit number; the default value is 128. The following parameters are specific to vlan(4) interfaces: vlan vlan_tag Set the VLAN tag value to vlan_tag. This value is a 16-bit num- ber which is used to create an 802.1Q VLAN header for packets sent from the vlan(4) interface. Note that vlan and vlandev must both be set at the same time. vlandev iface Associate the physical interface iface with a vlan(4) interface. Packets transmitted through the vlan(4) interface will be di- verted to the specified physical interface iface with 802.1Q VLAN encapsulation. Packets with 802.1Q encapsulation received by the parent interface with the correct VLAN tag will be diverted to the associated vlan(4) pseudo-interface. The vlan(4) interface is assigned a copy of the parent interface's flags and the par- ent's ethernet address. The vlandev and vlan must both be set at the same time. If the vlan(4) interface already has a physical interface associated with it, this command will fail. To change the association to another physical interface, the existing asso- ciation must be cleared first. Note: if the hardware tagging capability is set on the parent in- terface, the vlan(4) pseudo interface's behavior changes: the vlan(4) interface recognizes that the parent interface supports insertion and extraction of VLAN tags on its own (usually in firmware) and that it should pass packets to and from the parent unaltered. -vlandev [iface] If the driver is a vlan(4) pseudo device, disassociate the parent interface from it. This breaks the link between the vlan(4) in- terface and its parent, clears its VLAN tag, flags and its link address and shuts the interface down. The iface argument is use- less and hence deprecated. The following parameters are specific to carp(4) interfaces: advbase seconds Specifies the base of the advertisement interval in seconds. The acceptable values are 1 to 255. The default value is 1. advskew interval Specifies the skew to add to the base advertisement interval to make one host advertise slower than another host. It is speci- fied in 1/256 of seconds. The acceptable values are 1 to 254. The default value is 0. pass phrase Set the authentication key to phrase. vhid n Set the virtual host ID. This is a required setting. Acceptable values are 1 to 255. The ifconfig utility displays the current configuration for a network in- terface when no optional parameters are supplied. If a protocol family is specified, ifconfig will report only the details specific to that pro- tocol family. If the -m flag is passed before an interface name, ifconfig will display the capability list and all of the supported media for the specified in- terface. If -L flag is supplied, address lifetime is displayed for IPv6 addresses, as time offset string. Optionally, the -a flag may be used instead of an interface name. This flag instructs ifconfig to display information about all interfaces in the system. The -d flag limits this to interfaces that are down, and -u limits this to interfaces that are up. When no arguments are given, -a is implied. The -l flag may be used to list all available interfaces on the system, with no other additional information. Use of this flag is mutually ex- clusive with all other flags and commands, except for -d (only list in- terfaces that are down) and -u (only list interfaces that are up). The -v flag may be used to get more verbose status for an interface. The -C flag may be used to list all of the interface cloners available on the system, with no additional information. Use of this flag is mutually exclusive with all other flags and commands. The -k flag causes keying information for the interface, if available, to be printed. For example, the values of 802.11 WEP keys will be printed, if accessible to the current user. This information is not printed by default, as it may be considered sensitive. If the network interface driver is not present in the kernel then ifconfig will attempt to load it. The -n flag disables this behavior. Only the super-user may modify the configuration of a network interface. NOTES The media selection system is relatively new and only some drivers sup- port it (or have need for it). EXAMPLES Assign the IPv4 address 192.0.2.10, with a network mask of 255.255.255.0, to the interface fxp0: # ifconfig fxp0 inet 192.0.2.10 netmask 255.255.255.0 Add the IPv4 address 192.0.2.45, with the CIDR network prefix /28, to the interface ed0, using add as a synonym for the canonical form of the op- tion alias: # ifconfig ed0 inet 192.0.2.45/28 add Remove the IPv4 address 192.0.2.45 from the interface ed0: # ifconfig ed0 inet 192.0.2.45 -alias Add the IPv6 address 2001:DB8:DBDB::123/48 to the interface em0: # ifconfig em0 inet6 2001:db8:bdbd::123 prefixlen 48 alias Note that lower case hexadecimal IPv6 addresses are acceptable. Remove the IPv6 address added in the above example, using the / character as shorthand for the network prefix, and using delete as a synonym for the canonical form of the option -alias: # ifconfig em0 inet6 2001:db8:bdbd::123/48 delete Configure the interface xl0, to use 100baseTX, full duplex Ethernet media options: # ifconfig xl0 media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex Create the software network interface gif1: # ifconfig gif1 create Destroy the software network interface gif1: # ifconfig gif1 destroy DIAGNOSTICS Messages indicating the specified interface does not exist, the requested address is unknown, or the user is not privileged and tried to alter an interface's configuration. SEE ALSO netstat(1), carp(4), netintro(4), pfsync(4), polling(4), vlan(4), rc(8), routed(8), sysctl(8) HISTORY The ifconfig utility appeared in 4.2BSD. BUGS Basic IPv6 node operation requires a link-local address on each interface configured for IPv6. Normally, such an address is automatically config- ured by the kernel on each interface added to the system; this behaviour may be disabled by setting the sysctl MIB variable net.inet6.ip6.auto_linklocal to 0. If you delete such an address using ifconfig, the kernel may act very odd. Do this at your own risk. BSD October 19, 2008 BSD
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | NOTES | EXAMPLES | DIAGNOSTICS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | BUGS
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