SuSE 9.1 ifconfig weirdness

Have just found out that ifconfig on SuSE 9.2 doesnt seem to show virtual intefaces:

message2:~ # ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:80:3F:2B:7B:60
          inet addr:192.168.0.200  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::280:3fff:fe2b:7b60/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:40203054 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4386872 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:2879540080 (2746.1 Mb)  TX bytes:321973799 (307.0 Mb)
          Base address:0x2000 Memory:dd200000-dd220000

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:80:3F:2B:7B:61
          inet addr:XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX  Bcast:XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX  Mask:255.255.255.224
          inet6 addr: fe80::280:3fff:fe2b:7b61/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:66946630 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:43575297 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:4317777 (4.1 Mb)  TX bytes:4011082191 (3825.2 Mb)
          Base address:0x2040 Memory:dd220000-dd240000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1692 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1692 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:113193 (110.5 Kb)  TX bytes:113193 (110.5 Kb)

message2:~ #

However if you use the ip command from the iproute2 package it shows that in fact eth1 does have some aliases:

message2:~ # ip addr
1: lo:  mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 brd 127.255.255.255 scope host lo
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: sit0:  mtu 1480 qdisc noqueue
    link/sit 0.0.0.0 brd 0.0.0.0
3: eth0:  mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:80:3f:2b:7b:60 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.0.200/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global eth0
    inet6 fe80::280:3fff:fe2b:7b60/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
4: eth1:  mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:80:3f:2b:7b:61 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX/YY brd XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX scope global eth1
    inet XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX/YY brd XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX scope global secondary eth1
    inet6 fe80::280:3fff:fe2b:7b61/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
message2:~ #

How weird is that. Versions shown below:

message2:~ # cat /etc/SuSE-release
SuSE Linux 9.1 (i586)
VERSION = 9.1
message2:~ # ifconfig -V
net-tools 1.60
ifconfig 1.42 (2001-04-13)
message2:~ #

**NB:**IP addresses changed to protect the innocent…