Handbook Talk:AMD64/Networking/Modular

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Proposal: Link to netifrc wiki page

Proposed changes - Please make edits here until a final revision is agreed upon.

Netifrc supports modular networking scripts ...

Proposals: Rephrasing

"Interface handlers" section

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As iproute2 and ifconfig do very similar things, we allow their basic configuration to work with each other. For example, the below configuration works regardless of the module used.
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Example configuration

"DHCP" section

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DHCP is a means of obtaining an IP address, together with other network information (DNS server(s), gateway, etc.) from a server. With a DHCP server running on a network, the user just has to tell each device to obtain configuration information via DHCP, which is then used to configure the device automatically. Of course, this requires a network connection (e.g. via a wireless access point, PPPoE, etc.).
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If more than one DHCP client is installed, it is possible to specify which client to use by setting the "modules" variable, e.g. modules="dhcpcd". Otherwise, if dhcpcd is installed, it's used by default. To send specific options to the DHCP module, use module_eth0="...", where module is the name of the DHCP module being used - for example, "dhcpcd_eth0".

"APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing)" section

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APIPA tries to find a free address in the range 169.254.0.0-169.254.255.255 by using arping to ping a random address in that range on the interface. If no reply is received, that address is assigned to the interface.

This is only useful for LANs where:

  • there is no DHCP server;
  • the system doesn't connect directly to the Internet; and
  • all other computers use APIPA.

"Bonding" section

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Bonding is used to increase network bandwidth or to improve resiliency in the face of hardware failures. If a system has two network cards going to the same network, they can be bonded: applications will see just one interface, but both network cards will be used.
Proposed changes - Please make edits here until a final revision is agreed upon.

Remove the net.eth* services from the relevant runlevel, create a net.bond0 service, and add that service to the appropriate runlevel.

"Bridging (802.1d support)" section

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For example, a network may have a server that connects to the Internet via an ADSL modem, and also has a wireless adapter to allow other devices on the network to access the Internet via that modem. It is possible to create a bridge to join the two interfaces together.

"VLAN (802.1q support)" section

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A VLAN, Virtual LAN, is a group of network devices that behave as if they were connected to a single network segment, even though they may not be. Members of a VLAN can only see other members of the same VLAN, even when they share the same physical network. For VLAN support, make sure that sys-apps/iproute2 is installed, and ensure that iproute2 is used as the configuration module (rather than ifconfig).