On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 08:17:29AM +0100, Martin Husemann wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 08:40:59AM +0200, Marek wrote:
> 
> > I would like to set up a machine with NetBSD as a internet gateway and 
> > firewall. I have been reading through the docs and i see that certain 
> > network changes require a reboot. Is this so ?
> 
> No, of course not. This is NetBSD, not Windows.
> 
> Some step-by-step instructions simplify matters by just telling the user to
> reboot instead of detailing several steps that are equivalent, so this might
> be where you got your impression from.

Additionally, for any machine which you expect to run 'unattended' for a
long time, I highly recommend a reboot after changes - to make sure that
the machine will boot back up with the settings you want.

You may well not be there when the machine loses power and has to come
back on its own.

ifconfig will happily change network settings at runtime - but unless
you update your configuration in /etc, it won't 'stick'.

Now, with that said, in recent versions of NetBSD, you can test your
network config without rebooting, by running
/etc/rc.d/network restart

I won't guarantee that you can't do anything that will behave
differently between that and what happens at boot (somehow) - so it's
still good to test ;-)

-- 
David Maxwell, david@vex.net|david@maxwell.net -->
(About an Amiga rendering landscapes) It's not thinking, it's being artistic!
					      - Jamie Woods