Originally posted by absmiths:
When I run netstat I have been getting entries such as these:
Internet:
Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire
169.254 link#4 UCS 0 0 en0
192.168.1 link#5 UCS 2 0 en1
Does anyone know what the link#4 and link#5 refer to? I have tried looking up info, but nothing explains what these lines exactly mean.
Wel, you didn't say which netstat options you're using, but I'm guessing -n.
That said, the link numbers refer to the local interfaces in your machine. The specified interfaces are in the subnets specified - in your case link #4 has an IP address of 169.254.x.x and link 5 is in the 192.168.1.0 subnet.
In other words, these are directly-attached networks that don't need additional routing.
As for the link numbers (why they're #4 and #5 rather than #1 and #2 like you're probably expecting), check the output of ifconfig -a and you'll see that link #1 is usually the loopback interface (lo0). Links 2 and 3 are typically IPv6 interfaces (gif0 and stf0), leaving links 4 and 5 for the typical en0 (ethernet) and en1 (airport)
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