I am curious about the proper way of setting up an EtherChannel from startup scripts. grep -R fec /etc/* didnt provide me a hint. So, all the EtherChannel configuration is in /etc/rc.local now: $ cat /etc/rc.local #!/bin/sh /sbin/ifconfig bge0 media 100BaseTX mediaopt full-duplex up /sbin/ifconfig bge1 media 100BaseTX mediaopt full-duplex up /usr/sbin/ngctl -f /var/fec0.conf /sbin/ifconfig fec0 inet x.x.x.x netmask 255.255.255.224 up /sbin/route add default x.x.x.x $ cat /var/fec0.conf mkpeer fec dummy fec msg fec0: add_iface "bge0" msg fec0: add_iface "bge1" msg fec0: set_mode_inet The ngctl behavoir looks kinda strange also -- the catalyst produces warnings about speed changes from 100 to 10 and back while the netgraph script is running. Thats why I fixed the speed and duplex on both sides.