At boot time each interface which has underlying hardware support makes itself known to the system during the autoconfiguration process. Once the interface has acquired its address it is expected to install a routing table entry so that messages may be routed through it. Most interfaces require some part of their address specified with an SIOCSIFADDR ioctl before they will allow traffic to flow through them. On interfaces where the network-link layer address mapping is static, only the network number is taken from the ioctl; the remainder is found in a hardware specific manner. On interfaces which provide dynamic network-link layer address mapping facilities (for example, 10Mb/s Ethernets using arp(4P),), the entire address specified in the ioctl is used.
The following ioctl calls may be used to manipulate network interfaces. Unless specified otherwise, the request takes an ifreq structure as its parameter. This structure has the form
struct ifreq {
char ifr_name[16]; /* name of interface (e.g. "ec0") */
union {
struct sockaddr ifru_addr;
struct sockaddr ifru_dstaddr;
short ifru_flags;
} ifr_ifru;
#define ifr_addr ifr_ifru.ifru_addr /* address */
#define ifr_dstaddr ifr_ifru.ifru_dstaddr /* other end of p-to-p link */
#define ifr_flags ifr_ifru.ifru_flags /* flags */
};
/*
* Structure used in SIOCGIFCONF request.
* Used to retrieve interface configuration
* for machine (useful for programs which
* must know all networks accessible).
*/
struct ifconf {
int ifc_len; /* size of associated buffer */
union {
caddr_t ifcu_buf;
struct ifreq *ifcu_req;
} ifc_ifcu;
#define ifc_buf ifc_ifcu.ifcu_buf /* buffer address */
#define ifc_req ifc_ifcu.ifcu_req /* array of structures returned */
};