5.3.2.1 Your network configuration

  Before you can configure TCP/IP, you need to determine the following information about your network setup. In most cases, your local network administrator can provide you with this information.

   
• IP address. This is the unique machine address in dotted-decimal format. An example is 128.253.153.54. Your network admins will provide you with this number.

  If you're only configuring loopback mode (i.e. no SLIP, no ethernet card, just TCP/IP connections to your own machine) then your IP address is 127.0.0.1.

     

• Your network mask (``netmask''). This is a dotted quad, similar to the IP address, which determines which portion of the IP address specifies the subnetwork number, and which portion specifies the host on that subnet. (If you're shaky on these TCP/IP networking terms, we suggest reading some introductory material on network administration.) The network mask is a pattern of bits, which when overlayed onto an address on your network, will tell you which subnet that address lives on. This is very important for routing, and if you find, for example, that you can happily talk to people outside your network, but not to some people within your network, there is a good chance that you have an incorrect mask specified.

  Your network administrators will have chosen the netmask when the network was designed, and therefore they should be able to supply you with the correct mask to use. Most networks are class C subnetworks which use 255.255.255.0 as their netmask. Other Class B networks use 255.255.0.0. The NET-2 code will automatically select a mask that assumes no subnetting as a default if you do not specify one.

  This applies as well to the loopback port. Since the loopback port's address is always 127.0.0.1, the netmask for this port is always 255.0.0.0. You can either specify this explicitly or rely on the default mask.

     

• Your network address. This is your IP address masked bitwise-ANDed the netmask. For example, if your netmask is 255.255.255.0, and your IP address is 128.253.154.32, your network address is 128.253.154.0. With a netmask of 255.255.0.0, this would be 128.253.0.0.

  If you're only using loopback, you don't have a network address.

     

• Your broadcast address. The broadcast address is used to broadcast packets to every machine on your subnet. Therefore, if the host number of machines on your subnet is given by the last byte of the IP address (netmask 255.255.255.0), your broadcast address will be your network address ORed with 0.0.0.255.

  For example, if your IP address is 128.253.154.32, and your netmask is 255.255.255.0, your broadcast address is 128.253.154.255.

  Note that for historical reasons, some networks are setup to use the network address as the broadcast address, if you have any doubt, check with your network administrators. (In many cases, it will suffice to duplicate the network configuration of other machines on your subnet, substituting your own IP address, of course.)

  If you're only using loopback, you don't have a broadcast address.

     

• Your gateway address. This is the address of the machine which is your ``gateway'' to the outside world (i.e. machines not on your subnet). In many cases the gateway machine has an IP address identical to yours but with a ``.1'' as its host address; e.g., if your IP address is 128.253.154.32, your gateway might be 128.253.154.1. Your network admins will provide you with the IP address of your gateway.

  In fact, you may have multiple gateways. A gateway is simply a machine that lives on two different networks (has IP addresses on different subnets), and routes packets between them. Many networks have a single gateway to ``the outside world'' (the network directly adjacent to your own), but in some cases you will have multiple gateways---one for each adjacent network.

  If you're only using loopback, you don't have a gateway address. The same is true if your network is isolated from all others.

     

• Your nameserver address. Most machines on the net have a name server which translates hostnames into IP addresses for them. Your network admins will tell you the address of your name server. You can also run a server on your own machine by running named, in which case the nameserver address is 127.0.0.1. Unless you absolutely must run your own name server, we suggest using the one provided to you on the network (if any). Configuration of named is another issue altogether; our priority at this point is to get you talking to the network. You can deal with name resolution issues later.

  If you're only using loopback, you don't have a nameserver address.

SLIP users: You may or may not require any of the above information, except for a nameserver address. When using SLIP, your IP address is usually determined in one of two ways: Either (a) you have a ``static'' IP address, which is the same every time you connect to the network, or (b) you have a ``dynamic'' IP address, which is allocated from a pool available addresses when you connect to the server. In the following section on SLIP configuration this is covered in more detail.

NET-2 supports full routing, multiple routes, subnetworking (at this stage on byte boundaries only), the whole nine yards. The above describes most basic TCP/IP configurations. Yours may be quite different: when in doubt, consult your local network gurus and check out the man pages for route and ifconfig. Configuring TCP/IP networks is very much beyond the scope of this book; the above should be enough to get most people started.