Provided by: ifupdown_0.8.10ubuntu1.4_amd64 bug

NAME

       /etc/network/interfaces - network interface configuration for ifup and ifdown

DESCRIPTION

       /etc/network/interfaces  contains  network  interface  configuration  information  for the
       ifup(8) and ifdown(8) commands.  This is where you configure how your system is  connected
       to the network.

       Lines  starting  with  `#'  are ignored. Note that end-of-line comments are NOT supported,
       comments must be on a line of their own.

       A line may be extended across multiple lines by making the last character a backslash.

       The file consists of zero or more  "iface",  "mapping",  "auto",  "allow-",  "source"  and
       "source-directory" stanzas. Here is an example:

       auto eth0
       allow-hotplug eth1

       source interfaces.d/machine-dependent

       source-directory interfaces.d

       iface eth0 inet dhcp

       iface eth0 inet6 auto

       mapping eth1
            script /usr/local/sbin/map-scheme
            map HOME eth0-home
            map WORK eth0-work

       iface eth1-home inet static
            address 192.168.1.2/24
            gateway 192.168.1.1
            up flush-mail

       iface eth1-work inet dhcp

       Lines  beginning  with  the word "auto" are used to identify the physical interfaces to be
       brought up when ifup is run with the -a option.  (This option is used by the  system  boot
       scripts.)  Physical interface names should follow the word "auto" on the same line.  There
       can be multiple "auto" stanzas.  ifup brings the named interfaces up in the order listed.

       Lines beginning with "allow-" are used to identify interfaces that should  be  brought  up
       automatically  by  various  subsytems.  This  may  be  done  using a command such as "ifup
       --allow=hotplug eth0 eth1", which will only bring up eth0 or eth1 if it is  listed  in  an
       "allow-hotplug" line. Note that "allow-auto" and "auto" are synonyms.

       Lines  beginning  with  "no-auto-down"  are used to identify interfaces that should not be
       brought down by the command "ifdown -a". Its main use is  to  prevent  an  interface  from
       being  brought  down  during system shutdown time, for example if the root filesystem is a
       network filesystem and the interface should stay up until the very end. Note that you  can
       still bring down the interface by specifying the interface name explicitly.

       Lines  beginning  with  "no-scripts"  are used to identify interfaces for which scripts in
       /etc/network/if-*.d/ should not be run when those interfaces are brought up or down.

       Lines  beginning  with  "source"  are  used  to  include  stanzas  from  other  files,  so
       configuration  can  be split into many files. The word "source" is followed by the path of
       file to be sourced. Shell wildcards can be used.  (See wordexp(3) for details.)

       Similarly, "source-directory" keyword is used to source multiple files  at  once,  without
       specifying  them  individually or using shell globs. Additionally, when "source-directory"
       is used, names of the files  are  checked  to  match  the  following  regular  expression:
       ^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+$.  In  other  words,  the  names must consist entirely of ASCII upper- and
       lower-case letters, ASCII digits, ASCII  underscores,  and  ASCII  minus-hyphens.  In  the
       directory path, shell wildcards may be used as well.

       When  sourcing  files  or  directories,  if  a  path  doesn't  have  a leading slash, it's
       considered relative to the directory containing the file in which the keyword  is  placed.
       In  the  example  above,  if  the file is located at /etc/network/interfaces, paths to the
       included files are understood to be under /etc/network.

       Currently, "source-directory" isn't supported by network-manager and guessnet.

       By default, on a freshly installed Debian system, the interfaces file includes a  line  to
       source files in the /etc/network/interfaces.d directory.

       Stanzas  beginning  with  the word "mapping" are used to determine how a logical interface
       name is chosen for a physical interface that is to be brought up.  The  first  line  of  a
       mapping  stanza consists of the word "mapping" followed by a pattern in shell glob syntax.
       Each mapping stanza must contain a script definition.  The named script is  run  with  the
       physical interface name as its argument and with the contents of all following "map" lines
       (without the leading "map") in the stanza provided to it on its standard input. The script
       must    print    a    string    on    its    standard    output    before   exiting.   See
       /usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples for examples of what the script must print.

       Mapping a name consists of searching the remaining mapping patterns and running the script
       corresponding  to  the  first  match; the script outputs the name to which the original is
       mapped.

       ifup is normally given a physical interface name as its first non-option  argument.   ifup
       also uses this name as the initial logical name for the interface unless it is accompanied
       by a  suffix of the form =LOGICAL, in which case  ifup  chooses  LOGICAL  as  the  initial
       logical name for the interface.  It then maps this name, possibly more than once according
       to successive mapping specifications,  until no further mappings  are  possible.   If  the
       resulting  name  is the name of some defined logical interface then ifup attempts to bring
       up the physical interface as that logical interface.  Otherwise ifup exits with an error.

       Stanzas defining logical interfaces start with a  line  consisting  of  the  word  "iface"
       followed  by  the name of the logical interface.  In simple configurations without mapping
       stanzas this name should simply be the name of the physical interface to which it is to be
       applied.   (The  default  mapping  script is, in effect, the echo command.)  The interface
       name is followed by the name of the address family that the interface uses.  This will  be
       "inet"  for  TCP/IP networking, but there is also some support for IPX networking ("ipx"),
       and IPv6 networking ("inet6").  Following that is the name of the method used to configure
       the interface.

       Additional  options  can  be  given  on subsequent lines in the stanza.  Which options are
       available depends on the family and method, as described below.  Additional options can be
       made  available  by  other Debian packages.  For example, the wireless-tools package makes
       available a number of options prefixed with "wireless-" which can be used to configure the
       interface using iwconfig(8).  (See wireless(7) for details.)

       Options are usually indented for clarity (as in the example above) but are not required to
       be.

       Multiple "iface" stanzas can be given for the same interface, in which  case  all  of  the
       configured  addresses and options for that interface will be applied when bringing up that
       interface.  This is useful to configure both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses on the same interface
       (although  if no inet6 stanza is present, the kernel will normally still perform stateless
       address autoconfiguration if there is an IPv6 route advertisement daemon on the  network).
       It  can  also  be  used  to  configure  multiple  addresses  of  the same type on a single
       interface.

INTERFACE TEMPLATES

       It is possible to define interface definition templates and extend them using the inherits
       keyword:

       iface ethernet inet static
            mtu 1500
            hwaddress 11:22:33:44:55:66

       iface eth0 inet static inherits ethernet
            address 192.168.1.2/24

       This may be useful to separate link-level settings shared by multiple interfaces from, for
       example, IP address settings specific to every interface.

VLAN AND BRIDGE INTERFACES

       To ease the configuration of VLAN interfaces, interfaces having .  (full  stop  character)
       in  the name are configured as 802.1q tagged virtual LAN interface. For example, interface
       eth0.1 is a virtual interface having eth0 as physical link, with VLAN ID 1.

       For compatibility with bridge-utils package, if bridge_ports  option  is  specified,  VLAN
       interface configuration is not performed.

IFACE OPTIONS

       The  following "command" options are available for every family and method.  Each of these
       options can be given multiple times in a single stanza, in which  case  the  commands  are
       executed in the order in which they appear in the stanza.  (You can ensure a command never
       fails by suffixing them with "|| true".)

       pre-up command
              Run command before bringing the interface up.  If  this  command  fails  then  ifup
              aborts,  refraining  from  marking  the  interface  as  configured, prints an error
              message, and exits with status 0.  This behavior may change in the future.

       up command

       post-up command
              Run command after bringing the interface up.   If  this  command  fails  then  ifup
              aborts,  refraining  from  marking  the interface as configured (even though it has
              really been configured), prints an error message, and exits with  status  0.   This
              behavior may change in the future.

       down command

       pre-down command
              Run  command  before  taking the interface down.  If this command fails then ifdown
              aborts, marks the interface as deconfigured (even though it  has  not  really  been
              deconfigured), and exits with status 0.  This behavior may change in the future.

       post-down command
              Run  command  after  taking  the interface down.  If this command fails then ifdown
              aborts, marks the interface  as  deconfigured,  and  exits  with  status  0.   This
              behavior may change in the future.

       There    exists    for    each    of    the    above   mentioned   options   a   directory
       /etc/network/if-<option>.d/ the scripts  in  which  are  run  (with  no  arguments)  using
       run-parts(8)  after  the option itself has been processed. Please note that as post-up and
       pre-down are aliases, no files in the corresponding directories are processed.  Please use
       if-up.d and if-down.d directories instead.

       All of these commands have access to the following environment variables.

       IFACE  physical name of the interface being processed

       LOGICAL
              logical name of the interface being processed

       ADDRFAM
              address family of the interface

       METHOD method of the interface (e.g., static)

       MODE   start if run from ifup, stop if run from ifdown

       PHASE  as  per  MODE, but with finer granularity, distinguishing the pre-up, post-up, pre-
              down and post-down phases.

       VERBOSITY
              indicates whether --verbose was used; set to 1 if so, 0 if not.

       PATH   the command search path:  /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:‐
              /bin

       Additionally,  all  options  given  in  an interface definition stanza are exported to the
       environment in upper case with "IF_" prepended and with hyphens converted  to  underscores
       and non-alphanumeric characters discarded.

       When  ifupdown is being called with the --all option, before doing anything to interfaces,
       if calls all the hook scripts (pre-up or down) with IFACE set to "--all", LOGICAL  set  to
       the  current  value  of  --allow parameter (or "auto" if it's not set), ADDRFAM="meta" and
       METHOD="none".  After all  the  interfaces  have  been  brought  up  or  taken  down,  the
       appropriate scripts (up or post-down) are executed.

OPTIONS PROVIDED BY OTHER PACKAGES

       This  manual  page  documents  the configuration options provided by the ifupdown package.
       However,   other   packages   can   make   other   options   available    for    use    in
       /etc/network/interfaces.  Here is a list of packages that provide such extensions:

       arping,  avahi-autoipd,  avahi-daemon, bind9, bridge-utils, clamav-freshclam, controlaula,
       epoptes-client, ethtool, guidedog, hostap-utils, hostapd,  htpdate,  ifenslave,  ifmetric,
       ifupdown-extra, ifupdown-multi, ifupdown-scripts-zg2, initscripts, isatapd, linux-wlan-ng,
       lprng, macchanger, miredo, nslcd, ntpdate, openntpd, openresolv, openssh-server,  openvpn,
       openvswitch-switch,  postfix,  resolvconf,  sendmail-base, shorewall-init, slrn, slrnpull,
       tinc,  ucarp,  uml-utilities,  uruk,  vde2,  vlan,  vzctl,  whereami,  wide-dhcpv6-client,
       wireless-tools, wpasupplicant.

       Please  consult  the documentation of those packages for information about how they extend
       ifupdown.

INET ADDRESS FAMILY

       This section documents the methods available in the inet address family.

   The loopback Method
       This method may be used to define the IPv4 loopback interface.

       Options

              (No options)

   The static Method
       This method may be used to define  Ethernet  interfaces  with  statically  allocated  IPv4
       addresses.

       Options

              address address
                     Address (dotted quad/netmask) required

              netmask mask
                     Netmask (dotted quad or CIDR)

              broadcast broadcast_address
                     Broadcast address (dotted quad, + or -). Default value: "+"

              metric metric
                     Routing metric for default gateway (integer)

              gateway address
                     Default gateway (dotted quad)

              pointopoint address
                     Address of other end point (dotted quad). Note the spelling of "point-to".

              hwaddress address
                     Link local address or "random".

              mtu size
                     MTU size

              scope  Address validity scope. Possible values: global, link, host

   The manual Method
       This  method  may  be  used  to  define  interfaces  for which no configuration is done by
       default. Such interfaces can be configured manually by means of up and  down  commands  or
       /etc/network/if-*.d scripts.

       Options

              hwaddress address
                     Link local address or "random".

              mtu size
                     MTU size

   The dhcp Method
       This  method  may  be  used to obtain an address via DHCP with any of the tools: dhclient,
       pump, udhcpc, dhcpcd. (They have been listed in their order of precedence.) If you have  a
       complicated  DHCP  setup  you  should  note  that  some  of  these  clients  use their own
       configuration files and do not obtain their configuration information via ifup.

       Options

              hostname hostname
                     Hostname to be requested (pump, dhcpcd, udhcpc)

              metric metric
                     Metric for added routes (dhclient)

              leasehours leasehours
                     Preferred lease time in hours (pump)

              leasetime leasetime
                     Preferred lease time in seconds (dhcpcd)

              vendor vendor
                     Vendor class identifier (dhcpcd)

              client client
                     Client identifier (dhcpcd)

              hwaddress address
                     Hardware address.

   The bootp Method
       This method may be used to obtain an address via bootp.

       Options

              bootfile file
                     Tell the server to use file as the bootfile.

              server address
                     Use the IP address address to communicate with the server.

              hwaddr addr
                     Use addr as the hardware address instead of whatever it really is.

   The tunnel Method
       This method is used to create GRE or IPIP tunnels. You need to have the ip binary from the
       iproute  package.  For  GRE  tunnels, you will need to load the ip_gre module and the ipip
       module for IPIP tunnels.

       Options

              address address
                     Local address (dotted quad) required

              mode type
                     Tunnel type (either GRE or IPIP) required

              endpoint address
                     Address of other tunnel endpoint required

              dstaddr address
                     Remote address (remote address inside tunnel)

              local address
                     Address of the local endpoint

              metric metric
                     Routing metric for default gateway (integer)

              gateway address
                     Default gateway

              ttl time
                     TTL setting

              mtu size
                     MTU size

   The ppp Method
       This method uses pon/poff to configure a PPP interface. See those commands for details.

       Options

              provider name
                     Use name as the provider (from /etc/ppp/peers).

              unit number
                     Use number as the ppp unit number.

              options string
                     Pass string as additional options to pon.

   The wvdial Method
       This method uses wvdial to configure a PPP interface. See that command for more details.

       Options

              provider name
                     Use name as the provider (from /etc/wvdial.conf).

   The ipv4ll Method
       This method uses avahi-autoipd to configure an interface with an IPv4  Link-Layer  address
       (169.254.0.0/16  family).  This  method  is  also  known  as  APIPA  or  IPAC,  and  often
       colloquially referred to as "Zeroconf address".

       Options

              (No options)

IPX ADDRESS FAMILY

       This section documents the methods available in the ipx address family.

   The static Method
       This method may be used to setup an IPX interface. It requires the ipx_interface command.

       Options

              frame type
                     type of Ethernet frames to use (e.g. 802.2)

              netnum id
                     Network number

   The dynamic Method
       This method may be used to setup an IPX interface dynamically.

       Options

              frame type
                     type of Ethernet frames to use (e.g. 802.2)

INET6 ADDRESS FAMILY

       This section documents the methods available in the inet6 address family.

   The auto Method
       This method may be used to define interfaces with automatically assigned  IPv6  addresses.
       Using this method on its own doesn't mean that RDNSS options will be applied, too. To make
       this happen, rdnssd  daemon  must  be  installed,  properly  configured  and  running.  If
       stateless  DHCPv6  support  is turned on, then additional network configuration parameters
       such as DNS and NTP servers will be retrieved from a DHCP  server.  Please  note  that  on
       ifdown, the lease is not currently released (a known bug).

       Options

              privext int
                     Privacy extensions (RFC4941) (0=off, 1=assign, 2=prefer)

              accept_ra int
                     Accept  router advertisements (0=off, 1=on, 2=on+forwarding). Default value:
                     "2"

              dhcp int
                     Use stateless DHCPv6 (0=off, 1=on)

              ll-attempts
                     Number of attempts to wait for a link-local address. Default value: "60"

              ll-interval
                     Link-local address polling interval in seconds. Default value: "0.1"

   The loopback Method
       This method may be used to define the IPv6 loopback interface.

       Options

              (No options)

   The static Method
       This method may be used to define interfaces with statically assigned IPv6  addresses.  By
       default, stateless autoconfiguration is disabled for this interface.

       Options

              address address
                     Address (colon delimited/netmask) required

              netmask mask
                     Netmask (number of bits, eg 64)

              metric metric
                     Routing metric for default gateway (integer)

              gateway address
                     Default gateway (colon delimited)

              media type
                     Medium type, driver dependent

              hwaddress address
                     Hardware address or "random"

              mtu size
                     MTU size

              accept_ra int
                     Accept router advertisements (0=off, 1=on, 2=on+forwarding)

              autoconf int
                     Perform stateless autoconfiguration (0=off, 1=on). Default value: "0"

              privext int
                     Privacy extensions (RFC3041) (0=off, 1=assign, 2=prefer)

              scope  Address validity scope. Possible values: global, site, link, host

              preferred-lifetime int
                     Time that address remains preferred

              dad-attempts
                     Number of attempts to settle DAD (0 to disable). Default value: "60"

              dad-interval
                     DAD state polling interval in seconds. Default value: "0.1"

   The manual Method
       This  method  may  be  used  to  define  interfaces  for which no configuration is done by
       default. Such interfaces can be configured manually by means of up and  down  commands  or
       /etc/network/if-*.d scripts.

       Options

              hwaddress address
                     Hardware address or "random"

              mtu size
                     MTU size

   The dhcp Method
       This method may be used to obtain network interface configuration via stateful DHCPv6 with
       dhclient. In stateful DHCPv6, the DHCP server is responsible for  assigning  addresses  to
       clients.

       Options

              hwaddress address
                     Hardware address or "random"

              accept_ra int
                     Accept  router advertisements (0=off, 1=on, 2=on+forwarding). Default value:
                     "1"

              autoconf int
                     Perform stateless autoconfiguration (0=off, 1=on)

              ll-attempts
                     Number of attempts to wait for a link-local address. Default value: "60"

              ll-interval
                     Link-local address polling interval in seconds. Default value: "0.1"

   The v4tunnel Method
       This method may be used to setup an IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnel. It requires the ip command from
       the iproute package.

       Options

              address address
                     Address (colon delimited) required

              netmask mask
                     Netmask (number of bits, eg 64)

              endpoint address
                     Address of other tunnel endpoint (IPv4 dotted quad) required

              local address
                     Address of the local endpoint (IPv4 dotted quad)

              metric metric
                     Routing metric for default gateway (integer)

              gateway address
                     Default gateway (colon delimited)

              ttl time
                     TTL setting

              mtu size
                     MTU size

              preferred-lifetime int
                     Time that address remains preferred

   The 6to4 Method
       This  method  may  be  used  to  setup an 6to4 tunnel. It requires the ip command from the
       iproute package.

       Options

              local address
                     Address of the local endpoint (IPv4 dotted quad) required

              metric metric
                     Routing metric for default gateway (integer)

              ttl time
                     TTL setting

              mtu size
                     MTU size

              preferred-lifetime int
                     Time that address remains preferred

CAN ADDRESS FAMILY

       This section documents the methods available in the can address family.

   The static Method
       This method may be used to setup an Controller Area Network (CAN) interface.  It  requires
       the the ip command from the iproute package.

       Options

              bitrate bitrate
                     bitrate (1..1000000) required

              samplepoint samplepoint
                     sample point (0.000..0.999)

              loopback loopback
                     loop back CAN Messages (on|off)

              listenonly listenonly
                     listen only mode (on|off)

              triple triple
                     activate triple sampling (on|off)

              oneshot oneshot
                     one shot mode (on|off)

              berr berr
                     activate berr reporting (on|off)

KNOWN BUGS/LIMITATIONS

       The  ifup and ifdown programs work with so-called "physical" interface names.  These names
       are assigned to hardware by the kernel.  Unfortunately  it  can  happen  that  the  kernel
       assigns  different  physical  interface names to the same hardware at different times; for
       example, what was called "eth0" last time you booted is now called "eth1" and vice  versa.
       This  creates  a  problem if you want to configure the interfaces appropriately.  A way to
       deal with this problem is to use mapping  scripts  that  choose  logical  interface  names
       according  to the properties of the interface hardware.  See the get-mac-address.sh script
       in the examples directory for an example of such a mapping script.  See  also  Debian  bug
       #101728.

AUTHOR

       The  ifupdown  suite  was written by Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au>.  This manpage
       was contributed by Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>.

SEE ALSO

       ifup(8), ip(8), ifconfig(8), run-parts(8), resolvconf(8).

       For advice on configuring this package read  the  Network  Configuration  chapter  of  the
       Debian    Reference   manual,   available   at   http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-
       reference/ch05.en.html or in the debian-reference-en package.

       Examples    of    how     to     set     up     interfaces     can     be     found     in
       /usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples/network-interfaces.gz.