# Bug or a feature? Interface groups on ifconfig



## xGhost (Jun 11, 2010)

hi

Is that a bug or a feature if I didn't seen a group with ifconfig?

greets
ghost


----------



## Carpetsmoker (Jun 11, 2010)

I do not understand your question ... Could you elaborate? What commands did you issue? What did you get? What did you expect to get?


----------



## xGhost (Jun 11, 2010)

```
ifconfig em0 group default_wan
ifconfig em3 group backup_wan

ifconfig -a
```

I can't see any option group on output from ifconfig. Ifconfig groups are very coole with PF


----------



## vrachil (Jun 13, 2010)

The interface groups you define inside pf, are just for that. PF.
If you need to group them outside pf, systemwide, you have to look into Link Aggregation. (There is a chapter in the handbook about that)

I haven't used it myself as I didn't need to, but I think that you don't need to either (unless you have a high-availability server that can multipath its way out of the datacenter).


----------



## aragon (Jun 13, 2010)

If it's just meaningful names you want, you can rename interfaces with ifconfig:


```
ifconfig em0 name default_wan
```

Grouping is another kettle of fish though...


----------



## xGhost (Jun 14, 2010)

I use this feature for multible WANs. I can switch interface without change any things
in my pf.conf in real time. That is very nice.

i.e. I can monitor a wan connection (i.e. ping). If it going down I can change the
interface with monitor script.

For multi-path routing I use route-to function in pf. The default route for group is store in a table, so I can change the default route for the group also with monitor script.

You see, this is a very nice feature from pf, so you can make a very dynamical pf rules.

I think, it can be a future feature from ifconfig that I can see the ''groups''. I can set it with ifconfig but a can see it with ifconfig...


----------



## mecano (Oct 19, 2011)

Interfaces groups are great, also default groups exist, egress (external default route group) and wlan (wireless group) comes to mind.
Sadly I have no FreeBSD at hand right now but did you try with:
[CMD=""]$ ifconfig <group_name>[/CMD]
Taken from OpenBSD ifconfig(8) "The interface parameter is a string of the form ``name unit'', for example, ``en0''.  If no optional parameters are supplied, this string can instead be just ``name''.  If an interface group of that name exists, all interfaces in the group will be shown."


----------



## plamaiziere (Oct 26, 2011)

xGhost said:
			
		

> Is that a bug or a feature if I didn't seen a group with ifconfig?



It's a feature. Use *ifconfig -v* to show groups.

I've not tested on FreeBSD but interface groups are useful with PF. You can have rules set without using interface names (except for a few options like skip).

Regards.


----------

