Interesting 'documentation bug' for redh ... / 2012-02-13

Interesting 'documentation bug' for redhat and derived linux distributions: several sites mention how you can setup alias configurations in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0 and beyond, but most configuration samples assume they need the statement

ONBOOT=yes

or ONBOOT=no. The original redhat documentation for alias and clone network adapter configuration misses the part on how to disable or enable them. We disabled a set of aliases and found out after a reboot that they were enabled again. Digging deeper in the script which reads them /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-aliases found the right statement to disable them:

ONPARENT=no

Yes, the default is to enable them when the parent comes up.

Wrong configuration samples found at:

• Bind Multiple IP Addresses to a Single Network Interface Card (NIC) - xenocafe
• Linux Creating or Adding New Network Alias To a Network Card (NIC) - Nixcraft