ifplugd - A link detection daemon for ethernet devices
Contents
Description
ifplugd is a daemon which will automatically configure your ethernet device when a cable is plugged in
and automatically unconfigure it if the cable is pulled. This is useful on laptops with on-board network
adapters, since it will only configure the interface when a cable is really connected.
It uses your distribution's native ifup/ifdown programs, but can be configured to do anything you wish
when the state of the interface changes. It may ignore short unplugged whiles (-d option) or plugged
whiles (-u option).
ifplugd may be used in "compatibility mode" by specifying -F on the command line. Than ifplugd will treat
network drivers which do not support link beat querying as always online.
Environment
The action script will be called with two environment variables set:
IFPLUGD_PREVIOUS The previous link status. Either "up", "down", "error" or "disabled". The former values
should be obvious, the latter is set on daemon startup.
IFPLUGD_CURRENT The current link status. See above for possible values.
Files
/etc/default/ifplugd: this file is sourced by the init script /etc/init.d/ifplugd and contains the
interface to be monitored and the options to be used.
/etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action: this is the script which will be called by the daemon whenever the state of
the interface changes. It takes two areguments: the first is the interface name (eg. eth0), the second
either "up" or "down".
/var/run/ifplugd.<iface>.pid: the pid file for ifplugd.
Name
ifplugd - A link detection daemon for ethernet devices
Options
-a|--no-auto
Do not enable interface automatically (default: off)
-n|--no-daemon
Do not daemonize (for debugging) (default: off)
-s|--no-syslog
Do not use syslog, use stdout instead (for debugging) (default: off).
-b|--no-beep
Do not beep (off), overrides --no-beep-up and --no-beep-down.
-U|--no-beep-up
Do not beep on interface up (off)
-D|--no-beep-down
Do not beep on interface down (off)
-f|--ignore-fail
Ignore detection failure, retry instead. Failure is treated as "no link". (default: off)
-F|--ignore-fail-positive
Ignore detection failure, retry instead. Failure is treated as "link detected". (default: off)
-i|--iface=IFACE
Specify ethernet interface (default: eth0)
-r|--run=EXEC
Specify program to execute when link status changes (default: /etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action)
-I|--ignore-retval
Don't exit on nonzero return value of program executed on link change. (default: off)
-t|--poll-time=SECS
Specify poll time in seconds (default: 1)
-T|--poll-utime=USECS
Specify poll time in microseconds, added to -t (default: 0)
-u|--delay-up=SECS
Specify delay for configuring interface (default: 0)
-d|--delay-down=SECS
Specify delay for deconfiguring interface (default: 5)
-m|--api-mode=MODE
Force a specific link beat detection ioctl() API. Possible values are auto, iff, wlan, ethtool,
mii, and priv for automatic detection, interface flag (IFF_RUNNING), wireless extension,
SIOCETHTOOL, SIOCGMIIREG resp. SIOCPRIV. Only the first character of the argument is relevant,
case insensitive. (default: auto)
-p|--no-startup
Don't call the script to bring up network on deamon start (default: off)
-q|--no-shutdown
Don't call the script for network shutdown on deamon quit (default: off)
-w|--wait-on-fork
When daemonizing, wait until the background process finished with the initial link beat detection.
When this is enabled, the parent process will return the link status on exit. 2 means link beat
detected, 3 stands for link beat not detected, everything else is an error.
-W|--wait-on-kill
When killing a running daemon (with -k) wait until the daemon died.
-x|--extra-arg=ARG
Specify an extra argument to be passed to the action script.
-M|--monitor
Don't fail when the network interface is not available, instead use NETLINK to monitor device
avaibility. The is useful for PCMCIA devices and similar.
-h|--help
Show help
-k|--kill
Kill a running daemon (Specify -i to select the daemon instance to kill)
-c|--check-running
Check if a daemon is running for a given network interface. Sets the return value to 0 if a daemon
is already running or to 255 if not.
-v|--version
Show version
-S|--supend
Suspend a running daemon. The daemon will no longer check the link status until it is resumed (-R)
again. (Specify -i to select the daemon instance to suspend.)
-R|--resume
Resume a suspended daemon. (Specify -i to select the daemon instance to resume.)
-z|--info
Request that a running daemon shall write its status information to syslog. (Specify -i to select
the daemon instance to send the request to.)
See Also
ifplugd.conf(5), ifup(8), interfaces(5), ifconfig(8), ifplugstatus(8)
Signals
SIGINT,SIGTERM ifplugd will quit, possibly running the shutdown script. This is issued by passing -k to
ifplugd.
SIGQUIT ifplugd will quit, the shutdown script is never run.
SIGHUP ifplugd will write its status information to syslog. This is issued by -z.
SIGUSR1 ifplugd will go to suspend mode. (-S)
SIGUSR2 ifplugd will resume from suspend mode. (-R)
Synopsis
ifplugd[options]

Comments
This man page was written using xmltoman(1) by Oliver Kurth. Manuals User ifplugd(8)