edsc(4)

edsc4

Ethernet discard network interface

Usage

device edsc

Overview

The edsc interface is a software discard mechanism which may be used for performance analysis and software testing. It imitates an Ethernet device, which allows for its use in conjunction with such drivers as if_bridge(4) and vlan(4).

As with other network interfaces, an edsc interface must have network addresses assigned for each address family with which it is to be used. These addresses may be set or changed with the SIOCSIFADDR ioctl(2) or ifconfig(8) utility.

Each edsc interface is created at runtime using interface cloning. This is most easily done with the ifconfig(8) create command or using the cloned_interfaces variable in rc.conf(5).

Caveats

Since outgoing packets are just discarded by edsc, ARP requests stay unreplied. Consequently, an IP packet cannot be sent via edsc until a static arp(4) entry is created for its next hop using arp(8).

Initially an edsc interface has a zero link level address. It can be changed with ifconfig(8) lladdr if needed.

Releases

46 releases since FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE; the text changed 33 times.

  1. 6.3
  2. 6.4
  3. 7.0
  4. 7.1
  5. 7.2
  6. 7.3
  7. 7.4
  8. 8.0
  9. 8.1
  10. 8.2
  11. 8.3
  12. 8.4
  13. 9.0
  14. 9.1
  15. 9.2
  16. 9.3
  17. 10.0
  18. 10.1
  19. 10.2
  20. 10.3
  21. 10.4
  22. 11.0
  23. 11.1
  24. 11.2
  25. 11.3
  26. 11.4
  27. 12.0
  28. 12.1
  29. 12.2
  30. 12.3
  31. 12.4
  32. 13.0–13.2
  33. 13.3–14.5
  34. 15.0–16.0

History

The edsc device was derived from the disc(4) device and first appeared in FreeBSD 6.3. This manpage was adapted from disc(4).

From base 16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79 in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.