xref: /netbsd/share/man/man4/sl.4 (revision 6550d01e)
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30.\"     From:	@(#)lo.4	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
31.\"
32.Dd July 9, 2006
33.Dt SL 4
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm sl
37.Nd Serial Line IP (SLIP) network interface
38.Sh SYNOPSIS
39.Cd pseudo-device sl
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The
42.Nm
43interface allows asynchronous serial lines to be used as
44.Tn IPv4
45network interfaces using the
46.Tn SLIP
47protocol.
48.Pp
49To use the
50.Nm
51interface, the administrator must first create the interface and assign
52a tty line to it.
53The
54.Nm
55interface is created using the
56.Xr ifconfig 8
57.Cm create
58subcommand, and
59.Xr slattach 8
60is used to assign a tty line to the interface.
61Once the interface is attached, network source and destination addresses and
62other parameters are configured via
63.Xr ifconfig 8 .
64.Pp
65The
66.Nm
67interface can use Van Jacobson
68.Tn TCP
69header compression and
70.Tn ICMP
71filtering.
72The following flags to
73.Xr ifconfig 8
74control these properties of a SLIP link:
75.Bl -tag -width Ar
76.It Ar link0
77Turn on Van Jacobson header compression.
78.It Ar -link0
79Turn off header compression. (default)
80.It Ar link1
81Don't pass through ICMP packets.
82.It Ar -link1
83Do pass through ICMP packets. (default)
84.It Ar link2
85If a packet with a compressed header is received, automatically enable
86compression of outgoing packets. (default)
87.It Ar -link2
88Don't auto-enable compression.
89.El
90.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
91.Bl -diag
92.It sl%d: af%d not supported .
93The interface was handed
94a message with addresses formatted in an unsuitable address
95family; the packet was dropped.
96.El
97.Sh SEE ALSO
98.Xr inet 4 ,
99.Xr intro 4 ,
100.Xr ppp 4 ,
101.Xr strip 4 ,
102.Xr ifconfig 8 ,
103.Xr slattach 8 ,
104.Xr sliplogin 8 ,
105.Xr slstats 8
106.Rs
107.%A J. Romkey
108.%R RFC
109.%N 1055
110.%D June 1988
111.%T "A Nonstandard for Transmission of IP Datagrams over Serial Lines: SLIP"
112.Re
113.Rs
114.%A Van Jacobson
115.%R RFC
116.%N 1144
117.%D February 1990
118.%T "Compressing TCP/IP Headers for Low-Speed Serial Links"
119.Re
120.Sh HISTORY
121The
122.Nm
123device appeared in
124.Nx 1.0 .
125.Sh BUGS
126.Tn SLIP
127can only transmit
128.Tn IPv4
129packets between preconfigured hosts on an asynchronous serial link.
130It has no provision for address negotiation,
131carriage of additional protocols (e.g.
132.Tn XNS ,
133.Tn AppleTalk ,
134.Tn DECNET ) ,
135and is not designed for synchronous serial links.
136This is why
137.Tn SLIP
138has been superseded by the Point-to-Point Protocol
139.Pq Tn PPP ,
140which does all of those things, and much more.
141