Menu
When I type ifconfig on my Mac terminal, several information is printed. But I can't understand what they are. Can anyone briefly tell me what they are? What are lo0, gif0, en0, and so on?
Here is the results of my terminal.
Last login: Wed Apr 29 21:22:21 on ttys000 gim-yeongdeog-ui-MacBook-Air:~ KimYoungDirk$ ifconfig lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384 options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM> inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD> gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280 stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280 en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 ether 64:76:ba:ae:a3:02 inet6 fe80::6676:baff:feae:a302%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4 inet 172.30.7.47 netmask 0xffff0000 broadcast 172.30.255.255 nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD> media: autoselect status: active en1: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 options=60<TSO4,TSO6> ether 32:00:1b:3e:80:00 media: autoselect <full-duplex> status: inactive p2p0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2304 ether 06:76:ba:ae:a3:02 media: autoselect status: inactive awdl0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1452 ether 0e:f1:59:ca:a5:30 inet6 fe80::cf1:59ff:feca:a530%awdl0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7 nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD> media: autoselect status: active bridge0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 options=63<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TSO4,TSO6> ether 66:76:ba:ea:38:00 Configuration: id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0 maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200 root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0 ipfilter disabled flags 0x2 member: en1 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER> ifmaxaddr 0 port 5 priority 0 path cost 0 nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD> media: <unknown type> status: inactive gim-yeongdeog-ui-MacBook-Air:~ KimYoungDirk$ 
540
ent0 is a "network adapter" which represents a physical device while en0 is a logical device (based on ent0) representing a standard "network Interface". "et0" could be another kind of "network interface" based on ent0. et0 is an IEEE 802.3 "network interface".
On systems with both an ethernet and wireless connection, en0 will be your ethernet interface and en1 will be your wireless interface. A MAC address will be shown for both en0 and en1 and likely labelled as "ether". On systems with just a wireless connection, en0 will be your wireless interface.
For the load-balanced server machines to work, you must set, or preferably alias, the loopback device, which is often called lo0, to the cluster address. By setting or aliasing the loopback device to the cluster address, the load balanced server machines will accept a packet that was addressed to the cluster address.
A network interface is the network-specific software that communicates with the network-specific device driver and the IP layer in order to provide the IP layer with a consistent interface to all network adapters that might be present.
In arbitrary order of my familarity / widespread relevance:
lo0 is loopback.
en0 at one point "ethernet", now is WiFi (and I have no idea what extra en1 or en2 are used for).
fw0 is the FireWire network interface.
stf0 is an IPv6 to IPv4 tunnel interface to support the transition from IPv4 to the IPv6 standard.
gif0 is a more generic tunneling interface [46]-to-[46].
awdl0 is Apple Wireless Direct Link
p2p0 is related to AWDL features. Either as an old version, or virtual interface with different semantics than awdl.
Note also,
netstat -nr to see how traffic is currently routed via network devices according to destination.Also answered in part on Apple SE here and there.
166
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With
