Hello.  Thanks for the reply.  I have been using the miniroot image, and 
its included kernel, from the miniroot image provided in the NetBSD-1.5.1
binary  release distribution.  
Following your suggestion and assuming that ifconfig is doing the right 
thing, I find that I cannot connect to any network attached devices, be
they on the local net or on some other net.  I think in this case, ifconfig
just isn't working.  I suspect it's a 32-bit versus 64-bit issue.
-Brian

On Jul 18,  4:43am, eeh@netbsd.org wrote:
} Subject: Re: Ifconfig does not work on miniroot of the 1.5.1 release on Ne
} |
} | 	Hello folks.  I tried to get an Ultra Netra T1 running this morning 
} | using the NetBSD-1.5.1 miniroot from the release distribution.  It booted
} | fine, recognized both hme0 and hme1, as well as the onboard SCSI bus and
} | disks.  However, when I got to a shell prompt, I found that ifconfig could
} | not set the IP address of hme0 or hme1.  
} | Running:
} | #ifconfig hme0 inet 1.2.3.4 netmask 0xfffffc00 broadcast 1.2.5.255
} | got me no errors, but doing a subsequent
} | #ifconfig hme0
} | turned up an IP address of 0.0.0..0 and a broadcast of 0.0.0.0
} | Ping too would not ping any address except 0.0.0.0
} 
} Yes, there does seem to be some sort of issue with the ifconfig
} on several of the miniroot images.  I have found it to display
} 0.0.0.0 for addresses even though the address is set correctly.
} 
} I'd suggest trying again, without setting the broadcast address,
} and setting a default route.
} 
} | The January snapshot miniroot panics as the machine comes up, so I couldn't
} | test that one.
} 
} What kernel are you using?  The January miniroot will not work
} with any of the 1.5* kernels.
} 
} Eduardo
>-- End of excerpt from eeh@netbsd.org