Re: Can you talk to a enet device with just the hardware address?

[Carey Evans <c.evans@clear.net.nz>]

Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu> writes:

> I have a (LexMark) black box print server I picked up surplus (cheap),
> and it has an ethernet interface, a serial interface (for a printer),
> and two parallel interfaces (for more printers).  It supports telnet,
> ping, etc.
> 
> It has the LAN hardware address printed on the back, but I don't know
> what TCP/IP address it might be set to.  I was wondering if there's
> any way to use the hardware address to talk to the box.  I assume
> there's not, but I thought it might be worth asking.

If this is that same as the one we've got, it actually works very
nicely.

The MarkNet box gets its IP address via the BOOTP procotol, so you'll
need to use bootpd (which you should have from netstd) or dhcpd.  I
think I found the Ethernet address printed on it was actually in a
different byte order, so run

    # tcpdump port bootpc

before you turn it on and you should see it asking for an address.
Use the ethernet address from that in your bootptab file.

After assigning it an IP address that way, I was able to send
PostScript files through it to the attached Lexmark Optra R+ using
lpr.  If you want I can send you the bootptab entry I used.

(I think it's possible to use the hardware address on other OS's using
drivers from Lexmark.  tcpdump thinks it's using IPX.)

-- 
		Carey Evans  <*>  c.evans@clear.net.nz

"these are not inherent flaws in [NT] -- they don't happen by accident.
 They are the result of deliberate and well-thought-out efforts." - MS


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