stevem@pserv.UUCP (Steve Mestad) (09/20/89)
A few weeks ago, someone asked about changing the broadcast address for the ethernet interface on an HP9000 under HP-UX. I replied that its undocumented but that it worked. I based that response on what I thought I saw on one of our disk servers. I thought its broadcast address had been changed from the default 255 to 0 by the netlinkrc startup file. My logs showed I had to remove that option in netlinkrc and rebooted the cluster. Memory had me thinking this was due to ifconfig showing its broadcast address to have been changed to 0. Well, I spoke too soon and in error. Others have tried to duplicate it without success. I have tried to duplicate it without success. I have tried it with HP-UX 6.5, 6.2 and the 6.0 ifconfig under 6.5. Another user has tried the 6.2 ifconfig under 6.5. No go on any of them. I was trying it on a diskless node on a class C net. My server has 2 nets and the interface I thought was changed is using a class A address (no, its not a registered net nor is it connected). If this made a difference, I don't know. I can't try to duplicate it again soon; the cluster server runs our lab testers and I would rather avoid interrupting project work on them. I was going to let this error die quietly but another site sent me mail asking how to get the broadcast address changed. If ifconfig can change the broadcast address, its a very subtle hole in the option checking that was stumbled upon. Sorry for any problems this has caused. Steve Mestad.......stevem%pserv@src.honeywell.com