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Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 12:32:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Steve Reid <steve@edmweb.com>
To: "Victor A. Sudakov" <victor@vas.tomsk.su>
cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: "talk" does not work. Please help.
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> 1. What does this "ifconfig: ioctl (SIOCAIFADDR): File exists" message mean?
>    Is it an error?

Not sure. I wouldn't worry about it too much. The "File exists" might seem
especially confusing, unless you consider the similarity between sockets
and files. *shrug*

> 2. How can I assign the 10.0.0.1 alias to lo0 automatically on
>    startup? I do not like the idea of issuing this command
>    manually after each reboot. Shall I put it into some kind of
>    startup file?

In /etc/sysconfig there are lines like this:

network_interfaces="lo0"
ifconfig_lo0="inet localhost"

I guess you should add something like this: 

ifconfig_lo0="inet 10.0.0.1 alias"