7.12. Setting Up Loopback Network Interface with IPRoute-6.10.0

The IPRoute2 package contains programs for basic and advanced IPV4-based networking. Now we need ip from it to bring up loopback network interface, which is expected by the testsuites of various packages.

Approximate build time: less than 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 15 MB

7.12.1. Use IPRoute2 to Set Up Loopback Network Interface

Compile the package:

PKG_CONFIG=false make SUBDIRS='lib ip'

The meaning of the environment and overriden make variables:

PKG_CONFIG=false

The building system attempts to find dependencies with pkg-config, which is not installed yet. We can override it since ip utility does not need these dependencies.

SUBDIRS='lib ip'

Only build the ip utility from the package and disable the build of other utilities. This is needed to prevent a build failure due to the lack of some dependencies.

It's not needed to install the ip utility now. Just bring up the loopback interface:

ip/ip link set lo up

Verify the result:

ip/ip addr

The command above should show 127.0.0.1/8 as the IPv4 address of lo, and ::1/128 as the IPv6 address.

Details on this package are located in Section 8.66.2, “Contents of IPRoute2.”