> Already had one of these, although I modified it a bit now, just says
> "inet host12". The longish errors have gone away, but the thing is still
> questioning my values.  On boot:
> 
> ifconfig: host12: bad value
> host12: bad value
> #: bad value
> 
> The only thing I can think of is that I've typed host12 where I should
> have typed something quite different, but no idea where that might be.
> And I still can't telnet to anywhere.  I'll keep poking at it, but further
> suggestions are welcome.  Thank you all for even this much help, it's a
> sad little machine but I love it so.

Ok, hmm, maybe the problem is that I didn't actually look at my files 
first.  Here's more or less what I have in /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1	localhost loopback

128.42.154.39	mycroft-holmes.brown.rice.edu mycroft-holmes mh

And so, my /etc/hostname.ae0 has:

inet mycroft-holmes 255.255.255.0 128.42.154.255 up

Where the 255's are my netmask and the other is my gateway address.  
Perhaps this will work better (i.e. make sure that the name you have in 
hostname.ae0 actually appears by itself and not just part of another name in 
/etc/hosts).

I hope this helps.

Later.

-- 
Colin Wood                                      ender@is.rice.edu
Consultant                                        Rice University
Information Technology Services                       Houston, TX