networksetup

[Sceak]

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone knows the working of networksetup -setnetworkserviceenabled ethernet off function.

I'm used to taking down network interfaces using ifconfig en0 down but this is for ipfw's configuration script and ifconfig's man page made me aware of something:

Mark an interface ``down''. When an interface is marked ``down'', the system will not attempt to transmit messages through that interface. If possible, the interface will be reset to disable reception as well. This action does not automatically disable routes using the interface.

Taking down the interface to make modifications to the firewall configuration using ifconfig seemed inappropriate and I have implemented networksetup; however the question remains among my circles: what does it do?

As far as I was able to tell using lsof networksetup -setnetworkserviceenabled ethernet off doesn't do anything.

I'd appreciate any clarification in this matter, or if anyone could point me to a board where they would have the answer.