Re: DHCP w/ tarball installs

[Manu Valderrama]

Hello Hurd!

> Is it possible to set up the network with DHCP on a Debian GNU/Hurd 
> installation generated from a tarball from alpha.gnu.org, or must I 
> install from the Debian CD's to get this working? I've RTFM'd, but 
> neither Neal's install guide nor the GNU Hurd User's Guide and 
> Reference Manual makes any mention of this. All I can find is,
>
> # settrans -fgap /servers/socket/2 /hurd/pfinet -i eth0 \
> -a a.b.c.d -g e.f.g.h -m i.j.k.l

In principle there is no DHCP support under the Hurd, but if you think
about what DHCP does it is not hard to find a solution for connecting
the Hurd to the net with DHCP. You just need to gather the network
parameters like address, gateway or mask from any operating system in
which DHCP works, then reboot, and configure the network under the
Hurd as it was a normal LAN. I have attached a recipe of how I do that
on my Hurd box.

> Which assumes a static IP address.
>
> Any advice would be greatly appreciated. :-)

Tell me if this have worked for you ( since it has worked for me ).
Good Luck!

Bye,
Manuel.


        DHCP Under the Hurd :

This document is a little recipe of how to get connected to the Internet under
the Hurd with a DHCP connection ( for example, usual Cable Modem ISP's ).
Althought there's no DHCP client at this moment for the Hurd, this is no
problem if you have another operating system in your computer with a DHCP
client. In this document I suppose that the OS with DHCP client support is
Linux ( as is my case ), but it will be easy to adapt what is said in this
recipe to another OS. Thanks to Alfredo Fernández and, although in a very
indirectly way, Tony Sanmartí for their unvaluable help without which this
document would never be wrotten.
As this is a recipe, just follow the next steps :
   1. To configure the network under the Hurd you only need three parameters :
      your IP address, the gateway address and the netmask; since the only
      thing that DHCP does is to provide you those parameters, and configure
      the network according them, all withouth the need of any knowledge from
      the user, the only thing you need is to obtain those parameters; in linux
      this is made with :

      # ifconfig

      eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:BF:5D:2F:C7
                inet addr:217.216.187.229  Bcast:217.216.191.255  Mask:
      255.255.248.0
                UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
                RX packets:4027 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
                TX packets:710 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
                collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
                RX bytes:695432 (679.1 KiB)  TX bytes:77054 (75.2 KiB)
                Interrupt:10 Base address:0xa400

      # route

      Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use
      Iface
      217.216.184.0   *               255.255.248.0   U     0      0        0
      eth0
      default         cliente-2172161 0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0
      eth0

      # route -n

      Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use
      Iface
      217.216.184.0   0.0.0.0         255.255.248.0   U     0      0        0
      eth0
      0.0.0.0         217.216.184.1   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0
      eth0
      This could seems quite complicated if it the first time you make it and
      you know almost nothing about networking ( as was my case ); so let's
      make a brief interpretation of those parameters :
          o ifconfig just give you the IP address and the netmask :

                inet addr:217.216.187.229  Bcast:217.216.191.255  Mask:
            255.255.248.0
            So take a piece of paper and anotate those two parameters.
          o route gives you the gateway address; the gateway is indicated in
            the line starting with default in the Destination field :

            Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref
            Use Iface
            < forgot about the first line !! >        < forgot about the first
            line !! >
            default         cliente-2172161 0.0.0.0         UG    0      0
            0 eth0
            but better if you have the gateway address in a more numeric way;
            this is why # route -n is typed :

            Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref
            Use Iface
            < forgot about the first line !! >        < forgot about the first
            line !! >
            0.0.0.0         217.216.184.1   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0
            0 eth0
            the gateway address is 217.216.184.1; again, anotate it.
   2. Another fundamentak thing to set up your network under the Hurd are the
      addresses of the nameservers. In linux they are stored with the file /
      etc/resolv.conf. Copy this file to your Hurd's partition :
      # cp /etc/resolv.conf <hurd-mount-point>/etc/resolv.conf
   3. Reboot your machine and boot the Hurd; login as root and type :
      # settrans -fgap /server/socket/2 /hurd/pfinet -i eth0
        -a 217.216.187.229 -g 217.216.184.1 -m 255.255.248.0
      of course substitute these example values above by your network
      parameters
   4. Let's test the network :
      # ping hurd.gnu.org
      did it works OK ? In that case :
      # lynx hurd.gnu.org
      and enjoy surfing the net !