Bug 231576

Summary: [RC.CONF(5)] cloned_interfaces improvement
Product: Documentation Reporter: Pekka Järvinen <pekka.jarvinen>
Component: Manual PagesAssignee: freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status: Open ---    
Severity: Affects Only Me CC: doc, hrs
Priority: ---    
Version: Latest   
Hardware: Any   
OS: Any   
See Also: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=231578

Description Pekka Järvinen 2018-09-22 10:05:26 UTC
Hello!

man page:
cloned_interfaces
  (str) Set to the list of clonable network interfaces to cre-
  ate on this host.  Further cloning arguments may be passed to
  the ifconfig(8) create command for each interface by setting
  the create_args_<interface> variable. If an interface name
  is specified with ``:sticky'' keyword, the interface will not
  be destroyed even when rc.d/netif script is invoked with
  ``stop'' argument.  This is useful when reconfiguring the
  interface without destroying it.  Entries in
  cloned_interfaces are automatically appended to
  network_interfaces for configuration.
  
Questions not answered:
- What it actually does? Repeats packets? Creates some kind of dummy device?
- When I (don't) need it?
- Security implications?
- Performance implications?

if_bridge uses it but it's not referenced.
Comment 1 Hiroki Sato freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2018-09-23 13:23:06 UTC
Please post a question to a public mailling list such as freebsd-questions, not to submit it as a problem report.
Comment 2 Pekka Järvinen 2018-09-23 17:47:26 UTC
It's not a mailing list question. Manual or handbook has to give an explanation of the parameter. Otherwise it's a undocumented feature. Common networking such as bridge and epair uses it, which are core components so it has to be explained properly through documentation. Not random people at mailing list.