Adding Virtual Host IPs Takes Too Long

[Gary Bannister]

We are setting up our first web server under FreeBSD 5.1.  Everything is
going well except that adding virtual host IPs takes a very long time.  We
have timed it at 7 minutes to add 255 IPs.  This seems to talk far too long
and makes reboots very long processes.

Our "start_if.em1" file is as follows:

ifconfig_em1="inet 216.145.105.3 netmask 255.255.255.0 media 100baseTX
mediaopt
full-duplex"
ifconfig_em1_alias0="inet 216.145.105.4 netmask 255.255.255.255"
ifconfig_em1_alias1="inet 216.145.105.5 netmask 255.255.255.255"
ifconfig_em1_alias2="inet 216.145.105.6 netmask 255.255.255.255"
ifconfig_em1_alias3="inet 216.145.105.7 netmask 255.255.255.255"
ifconfig_em1_alias4="inet 216.145.105.8 netmask 255.255.255.255"
...
(etc.)
...

Adding aliases from the command line takes an equal amount of time (about 2
seconds per IP).  Both methods do work and no error messages are produced.

Is this normal or are we missing something???

Gary Bannister
NetAccess Systems Inc.