The chapters of this book describe how to configure and monitor network interfaces and link layer protocols supported by the Router. The purpose of this chapter is to give you some basic configuration and monitoring guidelines. This chapter also provides you with basic procedures and information needed for monitoring the interfaces via the GWCON interface command. This chapter includes the following sections:
Before you continue, make sure that you have familiarized yourself with the procedures necessary for accessing the network interface configuration processes.
For more information on these procedures, refer to the sections that follow in this chapter.
When configuring network interfaces, you may find it necessary to display certain information about specific interfaces. While some interfaces have their own console processes for monitoring purposes, the router displays statistics for all installed network interfaces when you use the interface command from the GWCON environment. (Refer to "Interface".)
The follow references contain the background information and examples of how to access the configuration and console prompts for interfaces.
Refer to "Adding Devices", "Accessing the Network Interface Configuration Process", and "Accessing the Network Interface Console Process" for complete information on accessing interface configuration and console processes. Accessing these processes allows you to change and monitor software configurable parameters for network interfaces used in your router.
Refer to "Getting Started" for complete information on accessing the protocol configuration and console processes. Accessing these processes allows you to change and monitor configurable parameters for Link Layer protocols supported by your router.
There may be occasions when you will need to define interfaces on your device that do not currently exist. You accomplish this dynamic reconfiguration of a device by defining spare interfaces while you are configuring the device and then using the console process to activate the interfaces when they are present. See "Configuring Spare Interfaces" and "Activate" for details.