Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: SYSRUTH@utorphys.bitnet (Ruth Milner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: ftp: bind: can't assign requested address
Keywords: SunOS
Message-ID: <3605@kalliope.rice.edu>
Date: 30 May 89 22:58:00 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 33
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 11, message 4 of 15

I'd like to thank all those who responded to my earlier query about what
might be causing this error message on a diskless 3/110. There were some
excellent suggestions, and although none of them happened to be our
problem, they did point me in the right direction.

It was really very simple, and very silly <blush>. After building the
3/110's root from that of another diskless client, a 3/50, although we
remembered to change the hostname and so forth, we (read "I" :-( ) forgot
to make sure that the call to ifconfig from /etc/rc.boot was being run on
the correct interface. As a result, ifconfig was running on le0 instead of
ie0 (3/110's use the Intel chip, not the Lance chip). I'm suitably
embarrassed.

A simple "ifconfig ie0" showed that the correct Internet address was being
picked up, no doubt from rarp (otherwise it would not have booted at all).
However there must be other things set up by ifconfig which weren't being
configured properly as a result. Once the change was made and the system
rebooted, ftp ran fine. I'm posting this so that people who might be
seeing this error have one more trivial thing they can check before
starting to delve into kernel data structures.

If anyone who still has this problem after checking all the easy stuff is
interested in the nitty-gritties of other potential causes, drop me a line
and I'll forward the (quite long) messages which describe them.  Warning:
you'll need to know how to use adb to make any use of them.

Thanks again.

Ruth Milner
Systems Manager
University of Toronto Physics

sysruth@utorphys (BITNET)      sysruth@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Internet)