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From: martin@cbmvax.commodore.com (Martin Hunt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: AS225 TCP/IP Problem
Message-ID: <22784@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 28 Jun 91 16:56:03 GMT
References: <1991Jun21.160053.19598@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <3656@swrinde.nde.swri.edu>
Reply-To: martin@cbmvax.commodore.com (Martin Hunt)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 66

In article <3656@swrinde.nde.swri.edu> kent@swrinde.nde.swri.edu (Kent D. Polk) writes:
>In article <1991Jun21.160053.19598@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> yurkon@CYCVAX.NSCL.MSU.EDU writes:
>>My administrator noticed that he was getting ARP requests from my node.  He
>>ask me to change the IP broadcast id to 35.8.0.0.  I originally had it se
>>to 35.8.32.0.  After changing it and rebooting the system, he said that the
>>problem was still there.  That is, he still sees ARP requests for address
>>35.8.0.0.  Anyone have a similiar problem?
>
>It appears that all of the AS225/A2065's generate these spurious ARP
>requests. I also tried changing the IP broadcast id to XX.XX.0.0. and a
>couple of other things, but nothing affected it. The only other box
>that appears to generate these types of ARP requests is the gateway
>box, which periodically goes around polling all the machines connected
>to it.

The problem is that the released ifconfig is broken.  In the start-inet
script there is a line like this:

ifconfig ae0 $hostname -trailers

This is supposed to read in the inet.config file and set up the
ethernet interface "ae0".  Unfortunately, it doesn't work with
class A or B netmasks or broadcasts.  To work around this, insert
a line like this after the previous line:

ifconfig ae0 netmask 255.255.0.0 broadcast 17.7.255.255

(make sure you use the proper netmask and broadcast values for your
network)

To check the current settings, you can always do a "ifconfig ae0".

>
>I heard a rumor that went something like this:
>
>1) the hardware (firmware) was based on a previous spec for tcp/ip.

Hardware has nothing to do with TCP/IP.  This is like saying that
the Amiga hardware is based on a previous ANSI C spec.

>
>2) it is periodically sending the ARP request which never gets
>satisfied since the current implementation for tcp/ip doesn't support
>that request any more (or maybe the way it is being requested).
>
>If anyone knows more about this, or what I should be looking for to
>further analyze the situation (we have a network analyzer avaliable),
>I sure would appreciate the information.
>
>Has anyone noticed if the Amiga UX boxes have this same problem? (i.e.,
>is it the AS225 software or the board which is causing this behavior?)
>

The A2065 cards are just dumb ethernet cards and are incapable of
doing an ARP by themselves.  I think the entire problem is just
the configuration problem I mentioned above.


>Thanks,
>Kent Polk: Southwest Research Institute (512) 522-2882
>Internet : kent@swrinde.nde.swri.edu
>UUCP     : $ {cs.utexas.edu, gatech!petro, sun!texsun}!swrinde!kent


Martin Hunt                            Networking Division
Commodore-Amiga                        Siberia Office          
martin@cbmvax.commodore.com