Networkdevice configuration: reboot necessary?

[Matthew Seaman]

Karl Sinn wrote:

> I went on with the configuration of my first FreeBSD computer. And I found 
> something amazing:
> 
> After the configuration of the network device with sysinstall the network did 
> not work immediately.
> In the handbook it is written to reboot after configuration.

Hmmm... sysinstall will usually prompt you to bring up a network interface
after you've filled out the appropriate menu stuff.  

What sysinstall is doing behind the scenes is rewriting the settings in
/etc/rc.conf.  As you've discovered, that only has any effect when running
the scripts in /etc/rc.d (or /usr/local/etc/rc.d) -- ie. generally when
rebooting.  In fact, what sysinstall does is append new settings to the
end of rc.conf, confusingly leaving the old ones still at the top of the
file. You would be well advised (for the sake of your own sanity, if
nothing else) to learn how to edit rc.conf directly to make such
configuration changes, plus keep the file trimmed of old entries and
extraneous fluff.

> Is this really necessary? 
> Is there no other way to change the configuration without turning of the 
> computer?

Of course there is.  You just run ifconfig from the command line,
like you would with any other unix system.  Of course, that pre-supposes
you know what to put onto the ifconfig command line: the ifconfig(8)
manual page is a good place to start.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       7 Priory Courtyard
                                                      Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Ramsgate
                                                      Kent, CT11 9PW

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