HPUX 11.0: ifconfig: ioctl (SIOCSIFNETMASK) in rc.log

[Rodger Devillier]

When booting a Visualize workstation I am seeing a failure in the LAN configuration section with the message ERROR: lan0 ifconfig: ioctl (SIOCSIFNETMASK): bad value
subnet mask checking already disabled using;
ndd -set /dev/ip ip_check_subnet_addr 0
and change made permanent.
ifconfig lan0 shows 'no such interface'.
issuing a /sbin/init.d/net start will start the lan and a subsequent ifconfig shows
inet 10.0.0.160 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 10.255.255.255

Why is it failing on boot-up when it appears to configure fine after boot?

[Carlos Fernandez Riera]

Are you using a iP ADDR whit 0 or 255 part?


You must configure /etc/rc.config.d/ndd too.


See man ndd or search forum for responses.

[Johan Gjestvang]

Hi, you have given an ip address/subnetmask combination that violat RFC1878 and/or RFC1122.

You can "unblock" this mechanism by adding to your
/etc/rc.config.d/nddconf file
like this:


TRANSPORT_NAME[0]=ip
NDD_NAME[0]=ip_check_subnet_addr
NDD_VALUE[0]=0

NB [0] is the variable sequence number. If you allready have any active commands in this file, this number must be incremented by 1.

To activate this command "on the fly": do ndd -c

Br,
Johan Gjestvang

[Rodger Devillier]

I am attempting to use 10.0.0.160 as the IP address. Changing the IP and subnet information to a 10.3.2.xxx seems to resolve the issue. Is a 10.0.0.xxx subnet invalid?

[Rodger Devillier]

I already have the following in /etc/rc.config.d/nddconf; (only entry)
TRANSPORT_NAME[0]=ip
NDD_NAME[0]=ip_check_subnet_addr
NDD_VALUE[0]=0

and doing a ndd -get ip_check_subnet_addr returns '0', yet this doesn't seem to allow me to use the 10.0.0.xxx subnet.
Is there more I need to configure?

[Rodger Devillier]

I created a script to run at boot after reading document A5241580. This has allowed me to use the 10.0.0.xxx subnet while having the LAN configured at boot.

Thanks for all the help

[Ron Kinner]

ip_check_subnet_addr

is an unsupported ndd option so there is no promise that it will work.

I assume you are using a 255.255.255.0 subnet. This makes your 10.0.0.x address a member of the so called zero subnet which per the RFC should not be used since it can be confused with the network address. 10.0.1.x should work OK.

You would run into the same problem if you used the last subnet.

Ron

[Ron Kinner]

One more thing. The reason that the NDD command doesn't work is that it's read too late to make any difference.

There is supposed to be a patch that fixed that and I also saw a small program that would run during boot to set the NDD option without the patch but since you already have it working I won't bother looking it up.

Ron

[rick jones]

as has been alluded - by default, HP-UX 11 networking does not like a subnet portion of all ones or all zeros (binary) as it is interpreting subnet masks per older RFCs.

setting ip_check_subnet_addr to zero causes the subnet masks to be interpreted per current RFCs.

on older 11.0 streams, the ndd settings are after ifconfig :( indeed, there was supposed to be a patch that dealt with this.

in 11i, the default for ip_check_subnet_addr is zero so there should be no issue on that release.

[Daniel Cardani]

Could someone tell me the patch name that fixes this issue.

[Kirk Dahl]

The patch that you will want is:

PHNE_20633:
( SR number: 8606107486 ; Defect: JAGab77719 )
Symptom:
A temporary file /tmp/stcp.conf is left around
unnecessarily.
Defect Description:
/sbin/init.d/net.init references an inappropriate file.
Resolution:
Changed /sbin/init.d/net.init to reference the correct
file.
( SR number: 4701413963 ; Defect: INDaa30107 )
Symptom:
Ifconfig may initialize network interfaces incorrectly
during system startup.
Defect Description:
Netconf/nddconf related startup scripts run ifconfig before
running "ndd -c". Some of the nddconf parameters can alter
the behaviour of ifconfig. If ifconfig runs before "ndd -c",
there is no opportunity for ndd to alter those parameters
at startup time resulting in incorrectly initialized network
interfaces.
Resolution:
Changed /sbin/init.d/net to reverse the calls to ndd and
ifconfig.