Fastest way to change IP addresses

[Jamie]

   I want to change the IP address from 200.80.11.7 to 200.80.11.8
on a FreeBSD machine as quickly as possible. Despite my efforts, I can
only get the change to work by editing rc.conf and rebooting the machine.
Isn't there a more elegant way?? The man page for ifconfig seems to cover
changing IP ALIASES, but not the primary IP of an interface.



  In order to switch to 200.80.11.8 I've tried:

1) ifconfig de0 200.80.11.8 255.255.255.0

  ifconfig -a then gives me:

  fxp0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        inet 200.80.11.8 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 200.88.11.255
        ether 00:03:47:b1:d6:1c
        media: 10BaseT/UTP status: active



  But then I cannot ping the gateway,

   ping 200.80.11.1

  5 Packets transmitted, 0 packets received 100% packet loss


  2) I've tried editing /etc/rc.conf with the desired IP address. I
then run:

sh /etc/netstart


  It gives me the same output listed in (1), but I still cannot ping the
gateway. The only way I can change the IP address is to make the change in
/etc/rc.conf and reboot the whole machine. Then it works just fine.


   I would have to think there has GOT to be a better way.

   Am I doing something wrong somewhere, or is it just a requirement that
you need to restart?


    Thanks,

   - Jamie







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