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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!metro!metro!asstdc.scgt.oz.au!nsw.news.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!imci3!newsfeed.internetmci.com!panix!not-for-mail From: jbarrm@panix.com (Barry Masterson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: /kernel: "rtinit: wrong ifa ...." ???? Date: 7 Jun 1996 23:06:26 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Lines: 82 Message-ID: <4paqni$dj@panix.com> References: <4okupn$k38@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <4p92u4$bkj@panix.com> <31B88B1D.41C67EA6@uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Vlad (roubtsov@uiuc.edu) wrote: : Barry Masterson wrote: : > : > Vladimir Roubtsov (roubtsov) wrote: : > : Hi: : > : A question to knowledgeable folks: what can a message : > : > : /kernel: rtinit: wrong (or bad) ifa: <some hex #> was <different hex #> : > : ( or close to this ) : > [...] : > : It is possible that both times I was running X312_SVGA server : > :and running : > : user-land ppp on COM2. The X server might've been in 16bpp mode in : > :which case : > [...] : > : Vlad. : > : > The 'rtinit' & 'ifa' messages are most likely from the ppp program. : > I had these messages, and the fix was in the /etc/sysconfig & /etc/hosts : > files. Basically, you have to check the 'hostname' value, and your : > ip address, and make sure it is entered correctly. : > : > Is your ip address static or dynamic? If dynamic, then there may not : > be much you can do about it. If its a static address you have, then : > the fix is a simple one. : > : > Barry Masterson : > jbarrm@panix.com : -- : Thanx to both people who responded. At least those bright letters on my : console didn't indicate a hardware problem as I feared initially :) Yeah, those 'bright' kernel messages haunted me for a while too. : It does look like this comes from the ppp program. Not only I get : dynamic ip addresses -- I even dial different numbers during the same : day! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Like two or three different dial-up numbers? : The problem to me was what to put in sysconfig and ppp.conf so that : everybody was happy. My guess: that particular message was due to my : assigned ip # (or provider's) changing during a ppp session in on-demand : regime. At the moment ppp negotiates provider's address and I always get : the # I want -- good for ppp's -auto mode -- but I can't control ip #'s : assigned to me. Well, I've tweaked and tweaked sysconfig, hosts, and : ppp.conf -- and maybe it's fine now, because I haven't seen the "wrong : ifa..." message in a while. But I really don't know if it's gone for : good„ and if so, what was the crucial step there... : Dazed, : Vlad. Messages gone? Thats great! Personally, I have (and prefer) static ip addressing. As I remember reading, the FreeBSD kernel stores the ip address in the routing table. On a fresh boot, the routing table is empty. ppp asks your isp 'who am I?', and your isp gives you an address, dynamic; always different, in your case. On the second ppp attempt, during the same boot session, that dynamic ip address is still in your routing table. And thats where the confusion starts, the address don't match. In these (dynamic) cases, I'm not sure just what to put in the ppp.config file (sysconfig & hosts files also). It would seem that you would want to flush the routing table after each dynamic ppp session, but how that is done, I do not know, I've got a static address here. Someone else here might have the answer to this question. I know the rtinit/ifa/dynamic_ip_address question comes up from time to time. The book "TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1' by Stevens (Addison Wesley) is an excellent book for anyone interested in learning the specifics of TPC/IP, it helped me. Barry Masterson jbarrm@panix.com -- >--->--->--->--->---> FreeBSD 2.1.0-R <---<---<---<---<---<