ifconfig problem

["J.A.Serralheiro" <mrserra@ci.uc.pt>]

here's a problem. I configured my network configuring
files /etc/network/interfaces
and it works lovelly. The thing is more of curiosity.

I tried doing the configuration with ifconfig
but I cant connect to hosts rather than the ones that lie in the same 
portion of network, I mean the ones that are attached to the same hub.
Everything looks fine, as I said, when configured with the initilizing
scritp /etc/inid.d/networking

when configuring by hand with ifconfig I used:

ifconfig eth0 address netmask mask_address up

replacing address and mask_address by the actual ip addresses.

Also if instead of ifconfig I use ipup, thigs work fine in the same way.
I read in the ifup man pages that ifup uses ifconfig.

does anyone has a clue about what is this problem related with?


thank you  in advance