Network selection overview
The network selection component is built around:
-
a network configuration database (the
/etc/netconfig
file) that contains entries for
each network available to the system.
-
an optional
NETPATH
environment variable,
set by a user or the system administrator,
which contains an ordered list of network identifiers.
These network identifiers match the
netconfig
``network ID''
field and are used as links to
the records in the netconfig file.
The network selection Application Programming Interface (API)
consists of a set of network configuration database
access routines.
One group of these library routines accesses only the
netconfig
entries identified by the
NETPATH
environment variable; another group of routines accesses
netconfig directly.
The routines are described in
``Network selection''.
The first
group is also
described in detail in
getnetpath(3N).
The second group is described in
getnetconfig(3N).
Applications should use the routines that access
NETPATH.
These routines allow users to influence the selection of transports
used by the application.
If an application does not want
the user to influence its decision,
then the routines that access the
netconfig
database directly should be used.
The netconfig file,
on which the network selection library routines depend,
is maintained by the system administrator.
The
NETPATH
environment variable is typically set or modified by
application programmers and users,
depending on the needs of their applications,
but it may also be set by the system administrator
in response to the needs of administrative applications.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 22 April 2004