Surprisingly many network interfaces on macOS: are these legitimate?

Question

ifconfig reveals a surprisingly long list of network interfaces on my MacBook, which is running macOS High Sierra (10.13.6): lo0, gif0, stf0, XHC20, en0, p2p0, awdl0, en1, en2, bridge0, utun0.

There is an F5 VPN client installed, but I've rebooted the MacBook since the last VPN connection.

Are all of these network interfaces legitimate or is this something I should worry about?

Answer 1

These are perfectly normal.

• lo is the loopback interface
• en0 and en1 are your hardware interfaces (usually Ethernet and WiFi)
• p2p0 is a point to point link (usually VPN)
• stf0 is a "six to four" interface (IPv6 to IPv4)
• gif01 is a software interface
• bridge0 is a software bridge between other interfaces
• utun0 is used for "Back to My Mac"
• XHC20 is a USB network interface
• awdl0 is Apple Wireless Direct Link (Bluetooth) to iOS devices

In my personal setup I have 2 addtional en interfaces (en2 and en3), as well as two software interfaces specific to VirtualBox, vboxnet0 and vboxnet1. Other virtualization applications like VMware, Parallels, and Docker will create their own interfaces as will VPN clients.