Compatibility
Any legacy Required Interface or Required Network configuration is automatically converted to a Preferred Network representation internally.
Consider master server bob, as described in a previous topic. (See PREFERRED_NETWORK examples.)
REQUIRED_INTERFACE = bob
This entry is equivalent to the following entry for IPv4:
PREFERRED_NETWORK = 0/0 MATCH 10.82.105.11
If IPv6 is enabled, using IP_ADDRESS_FAMILY = AF_UNSPEC, the following is equivalent for IPv6:
PREFERRED_NETWORK = 0/0 MATCH fc44:53f9:cb30:201:250:56ff:febc:e85f
Both bind the specified source interface for all outbound connections because 0/0 matches all destinations. But notice the length of subnet (/0): any other directive with a source binding and a longer target subnet will supersede these entries. Similarly, because both the IPv4 and IPv6 examples have the same subnet length, only the first of these two would be honored if both were configured.
Similarly, if a required network was configured:
REQUIRED_NETWORK = 10.82.105/21
It translates to the following:
PREFERRED_NETWORK = 10.82.105/21 ONLY
Which restricts destination addresses to the specified network without affecting source interface selection.
Notes:
In the event that both REQUIRED_INTERFACE and PREFERRED_NETWORK are specified and if they conflict, REQUIRED_INTERFACE overrides.
Unlike REQUIRED_INTERFACE, PREFERRED_NETWORK does not change the requesting_client or destination_client fields in user-directed requests to bprd for image list or restore.