SUMMARY: automatic generation of *correct* broadcast address

From: Steve Cobrin (cobrin.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com)
Date: Tue Mar 16 1993 - 13:11:31 CST


Hi folks, Apologies for the delay in sending this out

Thanks for replies from
        karrer@bernina.ethz.ch
        mills@ccu.umanitoba.ca
        Dave @ UK Sun Support <- the best response although not an official fix

To summarise, Sun's 4.1.x "ifconfig" program does not support the address
schemes based on all-1's broadcast.

"Under Solaris 2.x, all 1's broadcast is the standard, so ifconfig will
conform to this."

However if you want to fix this now you either must:
- write a C program to issue system calls on the interface.
- write a C or shell program to calculate the broadcast address to stuff into an
  ifconfig command

I haven't yet asked for permission to post the first C programs, but
I have for the script, which has the added advantage that it only
requires a change to the /etc/rc.local and nothing else.

Issue:
  Should we really be fixing the broadcast address in /etc/rc.boot?
  [probably however the shell script wouldn't work then]

If anybody has any further suggestions or even improvement for my
script, I would be grateful

Regards
        Steve

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From: cobrin.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com (Steve Cobrin @ RX)
Subject: automatic generation of *correct* broadcast address
Message-ID: <1993Jan30.002307.5839@spectrum.xerox.com>
Sender: news@spectrum.xerox.com
Reply-To: cobrin.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com
Organization: Rank Xerox, Welwyn Garden City, UK
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1993 00:23:07 GMT

  How can I ensure that the broadcast address is correctly set in
machines I'm installing?

  For example my machine is
        IP Address 13.200.0.53
        netmask 255.255.252.0

  I would like the ifconfig command to automatically correctly set the
broadcast address to 13.200.3.255 instead of 13.200.0.0

  I am running Solaris 1.1 (aka SunOS 4.1.3) I understand that this has
been fixed in Solaris 2, but need a fix to last me till we finish
(start?) moving there.

  I need the address to be calculated automatically, we have over 300
suns and we want to be able to move machines from one sub-net to
another with the minimum of interaction, ie. IP numbers allocated
perhaps via central RARP server. Although currently we are using 2
sub-nets this will be increased dramatically (to potentially limit to
16 machines per sub-net!?)

  One workaround, was to edit every /etc/rc.{boot,local} to calculate the
boadcast address by just forming the one's complement of the netmask
and inclusive or'ing it to the ip address, unfortunately I suddenly
realise that i couldn't think of any non C-programming way of doing
this, anybody know how I could do this with the *standard* sun
utilities.

  So to summarise, could anybody:
        - send me details of any patch for SunOS 4.1.3's ifconfig
        - send me details of any script which would enable me to do
          logical arithmetic

Thanks
        Steve

        Sun Support

Arpa Email address: cobrin.sbd-e@RX.Xerox.COM
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Original solution from Dave

#! /bin/csh -f
set nmask = 255.255.252.0
set ipadd = 13.200.0.10
set nm = `echo $nmask | sed 's/\./ /g'`
set ip = `echo $ipadd | sed 's/\./ /g'`
set bc = ""
foreach i (1 2 3 4)
        set bc = ($bc `echo "0t$ip[$i]|~0t$nm[$i]&0t255=d" | adb - -`)
end
set bcst = `echo $bc | sed 's/ /\./g'`
echo $bcst

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My Bourne shell version

#! /bin/sh

nmask=255.255.252.0
ipadd=13.200.0.10

gen_broadcast() {
nmask=`echo $nmask | sed 's/\./ /g'`
ipadd=`echo $ipadd | sed 's/\./ /g'`
for i in 1 2 3 4
do
        set $nmask; eval nm=\$$i
        set $ipadd; eval ip=\$$i
        x=`echo "0t${ip}|~0t${nm}&0t255=d" | adb - -`
        bc=${bc}${bc+.}`echo ${x}`
done
echo $bc
}

gen_broadcast $nmask $ipadd

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My final version which we've been using in our /etc/rc.local
This code should be placed just after the following two lines

# set the netmask from NIS if running, or /etc/netmasks for all ether interfaces
ifconfig -a netmask + broadcast + > /dev/null

# the following code should fix the broadcast address
for interface in /etc/hostname.*
do
        interface=`expr ${interface} : '/etc/hostname.\(.*\)'`
        eval `ifconfig -a | nawk '
        BEGIN {
                pattern = "^" interface ":" }
        $0 ~ pattern {
                getline
                inet = substr($0, match($0, "inet [0-9.]+"), RLENGTH)
                sub(/ /,"=", inet); print inet
                netmask = substr($0, match($0, "netmask [a-f0-9]+"), RLENGTH)
                sub(/ /,"=", netmask); print netmask
        }' interface=$interface`
        netmask=`echo $netmask | sed 's/\(..\)\(..\)\(..\)\(..\)/\1 \2 \3 \4/g'`
        inet=`echo $inet | sed 's/\./ /g'`
        broadcast=
        for i in 1 2 3 4; do
                set $netmask; eval nm=\$$i
                set $inet; eval ip=\$$i
                temp=`echo "0t${ip}|~0x${nm}&0t255=d" | adb - -`
                broadcast=${broadcast}${broadcast:+.}`echo ${temp}`
        done
        echo Setting broadcast address of ${interface} to ${broadcast}
        ifconfig ${interface} broadcast ${broadcast}
done

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