loopback won't enable automatically

[Ian Smith]

On Wed, 5 Sep 2007 01:47:47 +0000 Pollywog <lists-fbsd at shadypond.com> wrote:

 > I have to manually set the loopback interface after each reboot on one machine 
 > (it is a laptop):
 > 
 > ifconfig lo0 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
 > 
 > Then everything is fine.
 > 
 > I added ifconfig_lo0="127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0"  to /etc/rc.conf
 > but for unknown reasons it now looks like this and I still need to set lo0 
 > manually after reboots:
 > 
 > ifconfig_lo0="inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0"
 > 
 > Any ideas?  I am running FreeBSD 7

I noticed before when you posted your ifconfig with missing localhost
IPv4 address.  You shouldn't have had to add it to rc.conf in the first
place, as you should find this line existing in /etc/defaults/rc.conf:

ifconfig_lo0="inet 127.0.0.1"   # default loopback device configuration.

Check that nothing has messed with /etc/defaults/rc.conf, and also that
you have no later ifconfig_lo0 entry in rc.conf.  The last one found
there is the one that applies, later entries overriding earlier ones.

Apart from that, I can't imagine what might be deleting your default
localhost configuration, unless you're using rc.local?  Otherwise I'd be
searching any active scripts in /usr/local/etc/rc.d/ for any oddnesses
that may hae been installed by some port or other?

Cheers, Ian