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.TH RC.INET1 8 "03 Dec 2008" "Slackware Version 12.2.0"
.SH NAME
rc.inet1 \- Slackware network configuration script.
.SH DESCRIPTION
.BR rc.inet1 .
This script configures network interfaces.
Wireless interfaces are configured just like any network device
but accept many more configuration parameters.
.br
rc.inet1 reads its configuration parameters from a file `rc.inet1.conf'.
The `rc.inet1.conf' file contains a series of variable array definitions,
with each array index corresponding to a single network interface.
.SH OPTIONS
The way to start your network (the configuration of your nics and
bringing the interfaces up, and creating a default route if required)
is by running the command:
.LP
.B /etc/rc.d.rc.inet1
.LP
Restarting the whole network (all available network interfaces)
is done in a similar fashion:
.LP
.B /etc/rc.d.rc.inet1 restart
.LP
More generically speaking, you can start/stop/restart any network
interface yourself by running one of the commands:
.LP
.B /etc/rc.d.rc.inet1 INTERFACE_start
.LP
.B /etc/rc.d.rc.inet1 INTERFACE_stop
.LP
.B /etc/rc.d.rc.inet1 INTERFACE_restart
.LP
where 
.I `INTERFACE'
is the name of an existing network interface (eth0, wlan0, ...)
.SH WIRELESS
The script
.I rc.wireless
takes care of configuring the wireless parameters for a network
interface. This script does not run independently.  Instead, it is executed
by the generic network configuration script
.IR rc.inet1 .
.br
If a wireless interface is detected,
.I rc.wireless
will use
.I iwconfig ,
.I iwpriv
and possibly
.I wpa_supplicant
to associate the card with an access point (in managed mode) or peer it with
another computer (in ad-hoc mode), and enable an encryption modus like WPA.
.SH FILES
.TP 25
.I /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1
network configuration script
.TP
.I /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf
parameter definition file (is being read by rc.inet1 and rc.wireless)
.TP
.I /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless
wireless configuration script
.TP
.I /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf
parameter definition file (
.B deprecated
)
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
If you remove the executable bit from the
.I rc.wireless
script, it will never be executed.  This can be beneficial if you have 
written your own wireless script and don't want Slackware to mess it up.
.SH CAVEATS
The network interface definitions are stored in variable
.I arrays.
The bash shell has no facilities to retrieve the largest array index used.
Therefore, the
.I rc.inet1
script makes the assumption that array indexes stay below the value of
.BR 6 .
Effectively this means that you can configure up to 6 network interfaces in
rc.inet1.conf by default.
.LP
If you want to configure more than six network interfaces, you will
have to edit the file
.I /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1
and change the value `6' in the line:
.br
.B \ \ MAXNICS=${MAXNICS:-6}
.br
to a value that is larger than the largest index value you use.
.LP
The /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless script is not meant to be run on it's own by the user!
.SH AUTHOR
Eric Hameleers <alien@slackware.com>
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR rc.inet1.conf(5),
.BR ifconfig(8),
.BR iwconfig(8),
.BR route(8)