1vni(7d)                             Devices                            vni(7d)
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NAME

6       vni - STREAMS virtual network interface driver
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DESCRIPTION

9       The  vni pseudo device is a multi-threaded, loadable, clonable, STREAMS
10       pseudo-device supporting the connectionless Data Link  Provider  Inter‐
11       face  dlpi(7P) Style 2. Note that DLPI is intended to interact with IP,
12       meaning that DLPI access to applications is not supported.  (For  exam‐
13       ple, snoop fails on the vni interface.)
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16       The  vni  device  is  a  software-only  interface  and does not send or
17       receive data. The device provides a DLPI upper interface  that  identi‐
18       fies  itself  to IP with a private media type. It can be configured via
19       ifconfig(1M) and can have IP addresses assigned to it,  making  aliases
20       possible.
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23       The  vni  pseudo device is particularly useful in hosting an IP address
24       when used in conjunction with the 'usesrc' ifconfig option (see  ifcon‐
25       fig(1M) for examples).  The logical instances of the device can also be
26       used to host addresses as an alternative to hosting them over the loop‐
27       back interface.
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30       Multicast  is not supported on this device. More specifically, the fol‐
31       lowing options return an error when used with an address  specified  on
32       vni:  IP_MULTICAST_IF, IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP, IP_DROP_MEMBERSHIP, IPV6_MUL‐
33       TICAST_IF, IPV6_JOIN_GROUP, IPV6_LEAVE_GROUP. In addition, broadcast is
34       not supported.
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37       Because  there  is no physical hardware configured below it, no traffic
38       can be received through nor transmitted on  a  virtual  interface.  All
39       packet  transmission and reception is accomplished with existing physi‐
40       cal interfaces and tunnels. Because applications that deal with  packet
41       transmission and reception (such as packet filters) cannot filter traf‐
42       fic on virtual interfaces, you cannot set up a packet filter on a  vir‐
43       tual interface. Instead, you should configure the policy rules to apply
44       to the physical interfaces and tunnels, and if necessary, use the  vir‐
45       tual  IP  addresses themselves as part of the rule configuration. Also,
46       note that the virtual interface cannot be part of  an  IP  multipathing
47       (IPMP) group.
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FILES

50       /dev/vni    64-bit ELF kernel driver
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SEE ALSO

54       ifconfig(1M), in.mpathd(1M), ip(7P), ip6(7P)
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58SunOS 5.11                       18 July 2004                          vni(7d)
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