Hi, The /etc/init.d/network script created by the debian installation is very simple and not flexible enough if you need to manage complex networks with many interfaces.
I have written a generic network interface management command, net, which can be used to start/stop/show/configure network interfaces, and a smarter replacement for the /etc/init.d/network script. The net command makes use of configuration files stored in /etc/network/ which contain the various interface options. For example my eth0 is: # /etc/network/eth0 IPADDR=192.168.0.1 NETMASK=255.255.255.0 NETWORK=192.168.0.0 BROADCAST=192.168.0.255 GATEWAY=192.168.0.1 The command can be used in the following ways (more info in the man page): # Start the network, typically from init(8) net start # Start some specific interfaces net start eth0 eth1:0 # Start an interface with command-line options net start -i eth0 -a 192.168.1.1 -n 192.168.1.0 \ -b 192.168.1.255 -m 255.255.255.0 # Stop all the interfaces, typically from init(8) net stop # Stop some specific interfaces net stop lo eth0 # Restart the network net restart # Restart a specific interface net restart eth1 # Show network status net status # Same as above (default action) net # Show the status of a specific interface net status eth1 # Create or modify an interface configuration file net config eth0 The advantage is that you can now start/stop specific interfaces with simple commands using predefined configs, while the old script could only be used to start the entire network and couldn't stop or restart it or part of it. The new /etc/init.d/network script just calls the /usr/sbin/net command, which does all the real work, with the proper args, just start or stop, and all the configuration options are now stored as separate config files. The package can be installed over an slink system because the preinst script can convert automatically the old network file to the new eth0 config. The package is available at the following location: http://www.cs.unitn.it/~dz/debian/net_1.0-1_all.deb Please have a look and see if it can added to the main debian distribution. -- Massimo Dal Zotto +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Massimo Dal Zotto email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Via Marconi, 141 phone: ++39-0461534251 | | 38057 Pergine Valsugana (TN) www: http://www.cs.unitn.it/~dz/ | | Italy pgp: finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+