On Sun, Jul 14, 2002 at 03:03:19AM -0500, Carlo U. Segre wrote: > Hello All: > I have run across an odd problem when using etherconf in woody to > configure IP addresses statically on a 128 number subnet. > I have a subnet which goes from 164.54.244.0 to 164.54.244.127 > When I use etherconf I tell give the mask as 255.255.255.128 but etherconf > does not ask for a broadcast address, nor does it put one in > /etc/network/interfaces. > when the interface is brought up by /sbin/ifup, the broadcast address is > incorrectly set to 164.54.255.255 > This causes some huge problems on my network and I have had to remove > etherconf and just edit the /etc/network/interfaces by hand. > BTW, if the netmask is 255.255.255.0 all works perfectly! > I don't know if I should report this as a bug to etherconf or ifupdown, or > even ifconfig. In the first case, it would be good to have a "broadcast" > line in /etc/network/interfaces but that might just be masking a problem > in ifupdown's calculation of a broadcast address from the netmask. Or > perhaps it is a problem in ifconfig. The final possibility is that I am > making a stupid mistake. If I list both the netmask and the broadcast explicitly in /etc/network/interfaces for my /25 network (which is in a class-A netblock), then the interface is configured correctly. If I omit one or the other, then the default class-A value is used. This seems reasonable to me; if the netmask or broadcast address should be derived, it should be done at the kernel level for you -- not in the userspace tools. But this is not done, presumably for those rare cases when someone deliberately wants to have mismatched values... Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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