Reader Reports 

Reconfiguring Network Services

This UNIX shell script that will restart the various networking daemons without a full-blown system reboot, allowing the user to reconfigure network settings without restarting OS X. To make use of this script, make sure you are logged into OS X as Administrator/root. Open the Terminal application, and type "pico net-restart.sh" (without the quotes, of course). This will open Pico, a command-line text editor. Then, copy the script below and paste it into the terminal. Now hit Ctrl-X to exit Pico, and when prompted to "Save modified buffer?", hit return twice to save the file to disk.

You will now be back at the UNIX command line; type "chmod 555 net-restart.sh" to set the file's permissions to allow it to be executed as a script. Now make any changes you'd like to the Network control panel, and head back to the Terminal. Type "./net-restart.sh", and the script should run without incident:

	# !/bin/sh
	# 
	# This UNIX shell script that will restart the various networking daemons
	# without a full-blown system reboot, allowing the user to reconfigure network
	# settings without restarting OS X.
	# 
	# Timothy Hatcher
	# Licensed under OPL case `whoami` in 
		root) ;; *) echo "Not Administrator (root). You need to be in order to 
		restart the network." return ;; esac echo "Restarting the network, 
		network will be unavailable." kill `ps aux | grep ipconfigd | grep -v 
		grep | awk '{print $2}'` echo " - Killed 'ipconfigd'." ipconfigd 
		echo " - Started 'ipconfigd' right back up." sleep 1 ipconfig 
		waitall echo " - Ran 'ipconfig waitall' to re-configure for new 
		settings." sleep 1 kill -HUP `cat /var/run/nibindd.pid` echo " - 
		Killed 'nibindd' with a HUP (hang up)." sleep 2 kill -HUP `cat 
		/var/run/lookupd.pid` echo " - Killed 'lookupd' with a HUP (hang 
		up)." echo "The network has successfully been restarted and/or 
		re-configured and is now available." 

Tai Kahn 
  

ed. note -- as with any remote network administration, be careful; one mistake and you'll be driving to the office!