# Options Statements

Options statements allow specification of some global options. If used, `options` must appear before any other type of configuration statement in the gated.conf file.

The options statement syntax is:

        options
            [ nosend ]
            [ noresolv ]
    	[ gendefault [ preference preference ] [ gateway gateway] ]
            [ syslog [ upto ] log_level ]
    	[ mark time ]
            ;

The options list can contain one or more of the following options:

gendefault [ preference preference ] [ gateway gateway]
  When `gendefault` is enabled, when a BGP or EGP neighbor is up it causes the creation of a default route with the special protocol `default`. This can be disabled per BGP/EGP group with the `nogendefault` option. By default, this route has a preference of 20. This route is normally not installed in the kernel forwarding table, it is only present so it can be announced to other protocols. If a gateway is specified, the default route will be installed in the kernel forwarding table with a next hop of the listed gateway.

  Note that the use of the more general `generate default` option is prefered to the use of this `gendefault` option. The `gendefault` option may go away in future releases. The the section on Route Aggregation for more information on the `generate` statement.

nosend
  Do not send any packets. This option makes it possible to run GateD on a live network to test protocol interactions without actually participating in the routing protocols. The packet traces in the GateD log can be examined to verify that GateD is functioning properly. This is most useful for RIP and HELLO and possibly the SMUX SNMP interface. This option does not yet apply to BGP and is less than useful with EGP and OSPF.
noresolv
  By default GateD will try to resolve symbolic names into IP addresses by using the gethostbyname() and getnetbyname() library calls. These calls usually use the Domain Name System (DNS) instead of the hosts local host and network tables. If there is insufficient routing information to send DNS queries, GateD will deadlock during startup. This option can be used to prevent these calls, symbolic names will result in configuration file errors.
syslog [ upto ] log_level
  Controls the amount of data GateD logs via syslog on systems where setlogmask() is supported. The available logging levels and other terminology are as defined in the `setlogmask(3)` man page. The default is equivalent to `syslog upto info`.
mark time
  Specifying this option causes gated to output a message to the trace log at the specified interval. This can be used as one method of determining if gated is still running.

Last updated 1994/03/16 21:38:32.