I've been helping out in trying to get a working ethernet driver for NetBSD/Mac, 
and I've run into an odd problem.

It seems that a well formed call to ifconfig (which happens when /etc/netstart 
is executed during bootup) makes my Mac turn off.  The IIci (which I use) has a 
power supply which can be turned off by a software call through a VIA chip.  
Unfrotunately, it seems that ifconfig is accidentally addressing this VIA chip 
and causing the power-down.

To be more specific, when I do a:
ifconfig ae0 inet sfkaplan.student.amherst.edu netmask 255.255.255.0
the machine shuts off.

I got the ifconfig source from gatekeeper.dec.com, and after playing with it, I 
tracked down the offending code within ifconfig.c.  Around line 300, within an 
if statement that begins "if (newaddr)", there is a call to ioctl.  The second 
parameter is supposed to be an address.  Being passed in is "rafp->ae_aifaddr".  
Now, the ae_aifaddr field of the rafp structure should be set, we believe, to 
0xFs000000, where s=the NuBus slot number.  At any rate, the address that is 
contained in this field is garbage.  It doesn't seem to be set anywhere--or at 
least, we cannot find where it is being set.

So, obvisouly ifconfig works on other machines.  Where does rafp->ae_aifaddr get 
set?  How is the correct address supposed to be obtained?

Thanks for any help or clues...

Scott Kaplan
sfkaplan@amherst.edu