[nycbug-talk] fave BSD tips/tricks?

[Yarema]

Dru Lavigne wrote:
> 
> I'm finishing up an article for BSD mag on BSD tips and tricks. Anyone 
> have a favourite tip or trick they'd like to see in this article?

Too late for the article, I know..  But one of my favorite "tricks" for 
configuring network interfaces on FreeBSD is to rename the interfaces. 
Something like this (taken from my home server):

ifconfig_sk0_name="wan0"
ifconfig_re0_name="lan0"
ifconfig_wan0="DHCP polling"
ifconfig_lan0="polling"
ipv4_addrs_lan0="192.168.1.1-2/24"
dhcpd_ifaces="lan0"
... &c. &c.

The upside is that I no longer have to worry that pf.conf will break 
because I no longer need to use the
ext_if = "sk0"
int_if = "re0"
convention.  I don't even define the (ex|in)t_if macros.  Instead I just 
refer to the interfaces by their new names in all the rules.  And if 
appropriate I can copy pf.conf from one machine to another and I know 
it'll work even if the drivers are different.

This leaves only one place where the driver name is referenced, the 
rename variable.  No more search & replace across multiple files if I 
swap interface cards or motherboards and the like.

Before I started using this trick I'd invariably forget to change it 
somewhere and then I'd be wondering why dhcpd or somesuch is no longer 
working with my new hardware.  :)

Here's another example from one of my carped firewall boxen:

cloned_interfaces="carp0 carp1 carp2"
ifconfig_re0_name="wan0"
ifconfig_re1_name="lan0"
ifconfig_re2_name="lan1"
ifconfig_vr0_name="sync0"
ifconfig_wan0="polling"
ifconfig_lan0="polling"
ifconfig_lan1="polling"
ifconfig_sync0="polling"
pfsync_enable="YES"	# Expose pf state to other hosts for syncing
pfsync_syncdev="sync0"	# Interface for pfsync to work through

Makes the output of `ifconfig -a` much more sensible too..

-- 
Yarema