The IFD is an agent that monitors network interfaces and IP addresses. The IFD monitors all network interfaces and IP addresses configured in the node even when there are no highly available IP addresses in the node.

The IFD checks the number of input packets for each interace. If the number of input packets does not increase for a 10-second period, the IFD contacts the broadcast address of the interface by using the ping command. If the input packet count does not increase in the next 10-second period, the network interface and all IP addresses on the interface are marked as bad.

The IFD reads the configuration of IP addresses from the cluster database.

IP_address resource type action scripts use the ha_ifdadmin command to communicate with the IFD. Action scripts obtain status and configuration IP address from the IFD.

IFD logging can be controlled with the GUI and the cmgr command.