On Tuesday, January 22, 2002, at 07:20 PM, Andy Ruhl wrote:

> On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Jeff Hergan wrote:
>>
>> I was in a 'talk' session with Anton for a long time today trying to 
>> get
>> him running.
>> He wants the NetBSD machine to run httpd, a mailserver (POP3), and 
>> ftpd.
>> He also wants the NetBSD box to run sshd for his home network.  And he
>> wants to share his one, dynamic IP with two other machines.  And he has
>> only one network card.  I told him he's got his work cut out for 
>> himself.
>>
>
> That was quite noble of you. You're a good man.

Thanks, but if it weren't for the same sort of help, I would never have 
figured out to how to run Linux, and then NetBSD.  So I kinda owe 
someone.

> He does indeed have his
> work cut out. I would suggest getting the machine up and running on
> whatever network/ISP he is using before proceeding any further. After 
> all,
> everything is moot if he has no network connectivity.

Well, we got it to work as 192.168.150.2  But now, given what he wants 
to do with the machine we'll have to change that to use DHCP  and go 
from there.  And that's not gonna be easy because as soon as he logs 
into NetBSD and makes the ip change, he's not going to be able to 
communicate with me unless the DHCP thing just works.
If it does, he can ssh into my box and we can use 'talk' again.

>
>> particularly regarding the DHCP setup (I always had static IPs and I'm
>> not at all familiar with it).
>> Is it correct to assume that as long as the dhcp config file is in /etc
>> and rc.conf has the line added (which someone suggested before:
>> dhclient=YES) that it will 'just work'?
>
> Well, it depends. I don't know a lot about DHCP, but if the network card
> is recognized properly by the kernel (ie, it doesn't set the media type
> wrong or something similar), then DHCP should "just work" if he sets
> dhclient=YES in rc.conf and reboot. I know I know, we all say it should
> "just work"...

Hehehe.  Hopefully it will just work.  I guess he has to delete the old 
ifconfig.mc0
file and adjust /etc/hosts.

>
>> Also a question about sshd.  He tried to start sshd but got an
>> error...uhh...damn I can't remember what it was.  But it sounded weird
>> (as if that helps) and I didn't recognize it.
>> Should sshd just work?  I seem to recall just typing 'sshd &' and 
>> having
>> it work the last time I ran it.
>
> Again, if he sets sshd=YES in rc.conf and reboots (I say reboot because
> it's easier than explaining the proper way to start a daemon, even 
> though
> that should be revisited at some point) it should "just work". One thing
> to consider is he will need a properly configured hosts file because I
> believe NetBSD does some reverse lookup if I remember correct... It's 
> been
> a while since I've run into that one. You know you are having the 
> problem
> when it takes a while to log in. Back to sshd, one reason why it may not
> be working is the keys may not have been generated. The startup script 
> for
> sshd checks for the keys and generates them if necessary.
>

No.  You know what it was...it was a problem with the hosts file.  That 
was the weird error.  Something about host not found.  But I knew his 
/etc/hosts was messed up.
I'll have him fix it.

>> Finally, is there a way to allow telnetting as root?  I scoured the man
>> pages and couldn't find anything about this.  And yes, I recognize that
>> it's a grave security risk, but it will be on a closed home network, so
>> it won't be a problem.
>
> Oh jeez... I forgot. I know how to do it on some of the commercial 
> unixes
> because they allow it by default... Simple answer... JUST DON'T DO IT.
> There's no need for remote root these days in 99% of the installs in the
> world.

OK

>
>> Thanks.
>
> No prob. It wasn't all that long ago when I was 14 (well, sheesh, it was
> 14 years ago....) and I do seem to remember being quite impatient...
>

Well, I kept asking questions and only got answers to some of them (all 
this was off-list).  So I asked again and again. And I think that caused 
some frustration.
Much easier to do through a chat client or through 'talk'.

Jeffrey P. Hergan, Ph.D
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
Saint Xavier University
Chicago
>
> Much obliged to reply to a Ph.D in philosophy! I'm a philosopher, know
> why? Because I think I am...
>

Everyone's a Philosopher.  I should have picked a different field ;-)

Thanks for your help, Andy.  I appreciate it.

Jeff

> Andy
> (regular degree in Finance but I work on computers...)
>
> acruhl@sdf.lonestar.org
> SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
>