If you are using a static-allocation SLIP server, you may want to include entries for your IP address and hostname in /etc/hosts. Also, configure these files listed in the above section: rc.inet2, host.conf, and resolv.conf.
Also, configure rc.inet1, as described above. However, you only want to execute ifconfig and route commands for the loopback device. If you use dip to connect to the SLIP server, it will execute the appropriate ifconfig and route commands for the SLIP device for you. (If you're using slattach, on the other hand, you will need to include ifconfig/route commands in rc.inet1 for the SLIP device---see below.)
dip should configure your routing tables appropriately for the SLIP connection when you connect. In some cases, however, dip's behavior may not be correct for your configuration, and you'll have to run ifconfig or route commands by hand after connecting to the server with dip (this is most easily done from within a shell script that runs dip and immediately executes the appropriate configuration commands). Your gateway is, in most cases, the address of the SLIP server. You may know this address before hand, or the gateway address will be printed by the SLIP server when you connect. Your dip chat script (described below) can obtain this information from the SLIP server.
ifconfig may require use of the pointopoint argument, if dip doesn't configure the interface correctly. For example, if your SLIP server address is 128.253.154.2, and your IP address is 128.253.154.32, you may need to run the command
ifconfig sl0 128.253.154.32 pointopoint 128.253.154.2
as root, after connecting with dip. The man pages for ifconfig will come in handy.
Note that SLIP device names used with the ifconfig and route commands are sl0, sl1 and so on (as opposed to eth0, eth1, etc. for Ethernet devices).
In Section 5.3.4, below, we explain how to configure dip to connect to the SLIP server.