SUMMARY: Netmask issue on SunOS ... 4.1.1!

Fixed!

Best answer was from Matthew Stier (below) right out of the sunhelp.org FAQ 
I should have consulted in the first place.  Several others had the goods, 
too, including a fellow admin here.  THANKS TO ALL of you for your rapid 
replies!

Many folks believed that SunOS 4.x can not deal with VLSM.  Not true!  And 
it *can* be set in /etc/netmasks (some suggested hardwiring in rc.local).

The trick is that you list the Class B network number (no trailing zeros) 
and then the netmask.

Don't try to out-think it like I did and put in the full network number.  I 
deleted the 3rd octet from /etc/netmasks, rebooted, and all was well.

One caveat for 4.1.1, at least without patches:  ifconfig will show the 
Olde Style broadcast address, i.e. the all-zeroes version, not the all-ones 
version.  Yep, looks just like the network number.

Works OK though and I'm now sharing data from the massive 1000 MB external 
disk to the net.  :-)

Many thanks, all!

Peter




From: Matthew Stier
To: Laws, Peter C. <plaws@ou.edu>

www.sunhelp.org/faq/routing.html

3.8: How to Set a Netmask under SunOS

In order to include a permanent netmask on your SunOS machine, you must
make an entry in the /etc/netmasks file, in the following format:
network-address-without-zeroes netmask For example: %%%% cat
/etc/netmasks 150.101 255.255.255.0 The above would subnet the class B
network, 150.101.0.0, into 254 subnets, from 150.101.1.0 to
150.101.254.0. It is important to note that the entry in the left hand
column must be the original base network number (ie # for a Class A, #.#
for a Class B and #.#.# for a Class C), not the subnet.


Peter Laws wrote:
> First, I can't believe I'm back here after all these years.  Is Casper D
> still lurking?   :-)
>
> Anyway, I'm helping out (read: one of the few that's ever seen an SS2) with
> a SPARCstation 2 connected to an Acoustic Scanning Microscope.   It runs
> 4.1.1 (unpatched, AFAIK) and the folks that own it have a burning desire to
> share out its disk on the network.
>
> Yes, I warned them.
> Yes, I commented out most stuff in inetd.conf.
> Yes, we found a transceiver.  :-)
>
> Anyway, address is on a /21 network.  I think I have the right stuff in
> /etc/netmasks, but when it reboots, I get a /16 (our address block really
> is an old Class B).
>
> Ideas?
>
> I'll summarize (like anyone would care! :-)
>
> Thanks!
>
>


-- 
Peter Laws / N5UWY
National Weather Center / Network Operations Center
University of Oklahoma Information Technology
plaws@ou.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Feedback? Contact my director, Craig Cochell, craigc@ou.edu. Thank you!

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