Subject: Re: lo0 and networking device files?
To: None <ADAMGOOD@delphi.com>
From: Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@loki.stanford.edu>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 08/05/1997 11:16:59
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I have begun to work on getting networking/PPP up and running on MacBSD.
> I've been doing quite a bit of reading on the subject playing with the
> various configuration utilities.  One thing caught my eye - there are no
> device special files for either the loopback interface 'lo0', or the ppp
> interfaces 'ppp0' & 'ppp1'.

Correct. There are character devices, block devices, and network interfaces.
Only the first two actually have device special files. Network interfaces
don't as you open a connection to an address, not a conncection via a
certain interface.

> When my system boots, ifconfig gives me an error like SIOCGIFFLAGS:device
> no configured, or something like that.

At what point in the boot is this happening?

> Later, however, when I check ifconfig -a or netstat -i, lo0 shows up and
> so does ppp0 and ppp1.
> 
> What gives here?  Is there any significance to any of this?  Why is there
> nothing in the MAKEDEV scripts about creating any networking special files?

If the automatic boot process is spitting out a SIOCGIFFLAGS error,
then there is porbably an error in your booting. It might be that your
rc scripts are out of sync with your kernel.

Take care,

Bill