'ifconfig fxp0 -alias' wipes out all IPs on device

[Marc G. Fournier]

I hate to report an email, but after being laughed at by both Linux and 
Windows users, I'm kinda concerne at the lack of response to my originals 
... is this truly the desired behaviour?  And, if so ... can someone put 
some sort of warning/notice about it in the man page(s)?

==
I just made one of my 4.x remote servers inaccessible and just tested it on my 
5.x laptop, and it does the same thing ... not sure if this is considered a 
'desirable' effect, or a but ... but ... 'ifconfig device -alias' will wipe 
out all IPs on the device:

mobile# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=8049UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST mtu 16384
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff00 rl0: 
flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1500
options=8VLAN_MTU
inet 192.168.0.5 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
ether 00:0d:88:22:78:e4
media: Ethernet 10baseT/UTP
status: active
mobile# ifconfig rl0 -alias
mobile# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=8049UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST mtu 16384
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff00 rl0: 
flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1500
options=8VLAN_MTU
ether 00:0d:88:22:78:e4
media: Ethernet 10baseT/UTP
status: active

I was running a script that happened to pick up a 'zero length' IP (and I 
hadn't properly tested for it), so erased all the IPs configured on that 
device, instead of generating an error ...

Checking the man page, if this *is* desired effect, a bit of a warning might be 
in order:

 -alias  Remove the network address specified.  This would be used if
  you incorrectly specified an alias, or it was no longer needed.
  If you have incorrectly set an NS address having the side
  effect of specifying the host portion, removing all NS
  addresses will allow you to respecify the host portion.
Remove the network address specified., to me, means that if one isn't 
specified, nothing should/would happen :(


Marc G. Fournier   Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]   Yahoo!: yscrappy  ICQ: 7615664
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Re: 'ifconfig fxp0 -alias' wipes out all IPs on device

[Garance A Drosihn]

At 1:02 AM -0400 11/7/04, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
I hate to report an email, but after being laughed at by both
Linux and Windows users, I'm kinda concerned at the lack of
response to my originals ... is this truly the desired behaviour?
And, if so ... can someone put some sort of warning/notice about
it in the man page(s)?
I imagine you received no response simply because several of the
main developers have been swamped trying to finish off 5.3.  I
remember seeing your earlier report, but I don't remember which
mailing list it was sent to.
I'll respond enough to say that the behavior you saw seems
undesirable to me.  But I'm not a networking guy, so that doesn't
mean much...
--
Garance Alistair Drosehn=   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Senior Systems Programmer   or  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rensselaer Polytechnic Instituteor  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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