doc/FAQ/network.sgml

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<!-- $Id: network.sgml,v 1.4 1997-12-15 23:38:10 brian Exp $ -->
<!-- The FreeBSD Documentation Project -->
<sect>
<heading>Networking<label id="networking"></heading>
<sect1>
<heading>Where can I get information on ``diskless booting''?</heading>
<p>``Diskless booting'' means that the FreeBSD box is booted over a
network, and reads the necessary files from a server instead of
its hard disk. For full details, please read
<url url="../handbook/diskless.html"
name="the Handbook entry on diskless booting">
<sect1>
<heading>
Can a FreeBSD box be used as a dedicated network router?
</heading>
<p>Internet standards and good engineering practice prohibit us from
providing packet forwarding by default in FreeBSD. You can
however enable this feature by changing the following variable to
<tt/YES/ in <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc.conf"
name="rc.conf">:
<verb>
gateway_enable=YES # Set to YES if this host will be a gateway
</verb>
<p>This option will put the <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sysctl" name="sysctl"> variable
<tt/net.inet.ip.forwarding/ to <tt/1/.
<p>In most cases, you will also need to run a routing process to
tell other systems on your network about your router; FreeBSD
comes with the standard BSD routing daemon
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?routed"
name="routed">, or for more complex situations you may want to try
<em/GaTeD/ (available by FTP from <tt/ftp.gated.Merit.EDU/) which
supports FreeBSD as of 3_5Alpha7.
<p>It is our duty to warn you that, even when FreeBSD is configured
in this way, it does not completely comply with the Internet
standard requirements for routers; however, it comes close enough
for ordinary usage.
<sect1>
<heading>Can I connect my Win95 box to the Internet via FreeBSD?</heading>
<p>Typically, people who ask this question have two PC's at home, one
with FreeBSD and one with Win95; the idea is to use the FreeBSD
box to connect to the Internet and then be able to access the
Internet from the Windows95 box through the FreeBSD box. This
is really just a special case of the previous question.
<p>There's a useful document available which explains how to set
FreeBSD up as a <url url="http://www.ssimicro.com/~jeremyc/ppp.html"
name="PPP Dialup Router">
<p><bf/NOTE:/ This requires having at least two fixed IP addresses
available, and possibly three or more, depending on how much
work you want to go through to set up the Windows box. As an
alternative, if you don't have a fixed IP, you can use one of
the private IP subnets and install <bf/proxies/ such as
<url url="http://squid.nlanr.net/Squid/" name="SQUID"> and
<url url="http://www.tis.com/" name="the TIS firewall toolkit">
on your FreeBSD box.
<p>See also the section on <ref id="direct-at" name="natd">.
<sect1>
<heading>
Why does recompiling the latest BIND from ISC fail?
</heading>
<p>There is a conflict between the ``<tt/cdefs.h/'' file in the
distribution and the one shipped with FreeBSD. Just remove
<tt>compat/include/sys/cdefs.h</tt>.
<sect1>
<heading>Does FreeBSD support SLIP and PPP?</heading>
<p>Yes. See the man pages for
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?slattach"
name="slattach">, <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sliplogin" name="sliplogin">,
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?pppd" name="pppd"> and
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp">.
<tt/pppd/ and <tt/ppp/ provide support for both incoming and outgoing
connections. <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sliplogin"
name="Sliplogin"> deals exclusively with incoming connections and
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?slattach"
name="slattach"> deals exclusively with outgoing connections.
<p>These programs are described in the following sections of the
<url url="../handbook/handbook.html" name="handbook">:
<itemize>
<item><url url="../handbook/slips.html"
name="Handbook entry on SLIP (server side)">
<item><url url="../handbook/slipc.html"
name="Handbook entry on SLIP (client side)">
<item><url url="../handbook/ppp.html"
name="Handbook entry on PPP (kernel version)">
<item><url url="../handbook/userppp.html"
name="Handbook entry on PPP (user-mode version)">
</itemize>
<p>If you only have access to the Internet through a "shell
account", you may want to have a look at the <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?^slirp" name="slirp">
package. It can provide you with (limited) access to services
such as ftp and http direct from your local machine.
<sect1>
<heading>
Does FreeBSD support NAT or Masquerading<label id="natd">
</heading>
<p>If you have a local subnet (one or more local machines), but have
been allocated only a single IP number from your Internet provider
(or even if you receive a dynamic IP number), you may want to look at
the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?natd" name="natd">
program. <tt/Natd/ allows you to connect an entire subnet to the
internet using only a single IP number.
<p>The <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp"
name="ppp"> program has similar functionality built in via
the <tt/-alias/ switch. The <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?libalias" name="alias library">
is used in both cases.
<sect1>
<heading>
I can't make ppp work. What am I doing wrong ?<label id="userppp">
</heading>
<p>You should first read the <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp man page"> and
the <url url="../handbook/userppp.html"
name="ppp section of the handbook">. Enable logging with the command
<verb>
set log Phase Chat Connect Carrier lcp ipcp ccp command
</verb>
<p>This command may be typed at the <tt/ppp/ command prompt or
it may be entered in the <tt>/etc/ppp/ppp.conf</tt> configuration file
(the start of the <bf>default</bf> section is the best place to put it).
Make sure that <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?syslog.conf"
name="/etc/syslog.conf"> contains the lines
<verb>
!ppp
*.* /var/log/ppp.log
</verb>
<p>and that the file <tt>/var/log/ppp.log</tt> exists. You can
now find out a lot about what's going on from the log file.
Don't worry if it doesn't all make sense. If you need to
get help from someone, it may make sense to them.
<p>If your version of ppp doesn't understand the "set log"
command, you should download the
<url url="http://www.freebsd.org/~brian" name="latest version">.
It will build on FreeBSD version 2.1.5 and higher.
<sect2>
<heading>Ppp won't dial in -auto mode</heading>
<p>First, check that you've got a default route. By running <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?netstat">
name="netstat -rn">, you should see two entries like this:
<verb>
Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire
default 10.0.0.2 UGSc 0 0 tun0
10.0.0.2 10.0.0.1 UH 0 0 tun0
</verb>
<p>This is assuming that you've used the addresses from the
handbook, the man page or from the ppp.conf.sample file.
If you haven't got a default route, it may be because you're
running an old version of <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp"
name="ppp"> that doesn't understand the
word <tt/HISADDR/ in the ppp.conf file. If your version of
<tt/ppp/ is from before FreeBSD 2.2.5, change the
<verb>
add 0 0 HISADDR
</verb>
<p>line to one saying
<verb>
add 0 0 10.0.0.2
</verb>
<p>Another reason for the default route line being missing is that
you have mistakenly set up a default router in your
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc.conf"
name="/etc/rc.conf"> file (this file was called
<tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt> prior to release 2.2.2), and you have
omitted the line saying
<verb>
delete ALL
</verb>
<p>from <tt>ppp.conf</tt>. If this is the case, go back to the
<url url="../handbook/userppp:final.html"
name="Final system configuration"> section of the handbook.
<sect2>
<heading>What does "No route to host" mean</heading>
<p>This error is usually due to a missing
<verb>
MYADDR:
delete ALL
add 0 0 HISADDR
</verb>
<p>section in your <tt>/etc/ppp/ppp.linkup</tt> file. This is
only necessary if you have a dynamic IP address or don't know the
address of your gateway. If you're using interactive mode, you can
type the following after entering <tt/packet mode/ (packet mode is
indicated by the capitalized <bf/PPP/ in the prompt):
<verb>
delete ALL
add 0 0 HISADDR
</verb>
<p>Refer to the <url url="../handbook/userppp:dynamicIP.html"
name="PPP and Dynamic IP addresses"> section of the handbook
for further details.
<sect2>
<heading>My connection drops after about 3 minutes</heading>
<p>The default ppp timeout is 3 minutes. This can be adjusted
with the line
<verb>
set timeout NNN
</verb>
<p>where <bf/NNN/ is the number of seconds of inactivity before the
connection is closed. If <bf/NNN/ is zero, the connection is
never closed due to a timeout. It is possible to put this command in
the <tt>ppp.conf</tt> file, or to type it at the prompt in
interactive mode. It is also possible to adjust it on the fly while
the line is active by connecting to <tt/ppp/s server socket using
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?telnet" name="telnet">
or <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?pppctl"
name="pppctl">. Refer to the
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp"> man
page for further details.
<sect2>
<heading>My connection drops under heavy load</heading>
<p>If you have Link Quality Reporting (LQR) configured, it is
possible that too many LQR packets are lost between your
machine and the peer. Ppp deduces that the line must therefore
be bad, and disconnects. Prior to FreeBSD version 2.2.5,
LQR was enabled by default. It is now disabled by default.
LQR can be disabled with the line
<verb>
disable lqr
</verb>
<sect2>
<heading>My connection drops after a random amount of time</heading>
<p>Sometimes, on a noisy phone line or even on a line with
call waiting enabled, your modem may hang up because it
thinks (incorrectly) that it lost carrier.
<p>There's a setting on most modems for determining how tolerant
it should be to temporary losses of carrier. On a USR
Sportster for example, this is measured by the S10 register in
tenths of a second. To make your modem more forgiving, you could
add the following send-expect sequence to your dial string:
<verb>
set dial "...... ATS10=10 OK ......"
</verb>
<p>Refer to your modem manual for details.
<sect2>
<heading>Nothing happens after the Login OK! message</heading>
<p>Prior to FreeBSD version 2.2.5, once the link was established,
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp"
name="ppp"> would wait for the peer to initiate the Line Control
Protocol (LCP). Many ISPs will not initiate negotiations and
expect the client to do so. To force <tt/ppp/ to initiate
the LCP, use the following line:
<verb>
set openmode active
</verb>
<p><bf/Note/: It usually does no harm if both sides initiate
negotiation, so openmode is now active by default. However,
the next section explains when it <bf/does/ do some harm.
<sect2>
<heading>I keep seeing errors about magic being the same</heading>
<p>Occasionally, just after connecting, you may see messages in
the log that say "magic is the same". Sometimes, these
messages are harmless, and sometimes one side or the other
exits.
<p>This normally happens on server machines with slow disks that
are spawning a getty on the port, and executing ppp from a
login script or program after login. The reason is that in
the time taken between getty exiting and ppp starting, the
client-side ppp starts sending Line Control Protocol (LCP)
packets. Because ECHO is still switched on for the port on
the server, the client ppp sees these packets "reflect" back.
<p>One part of the LCP negotiation is to establish a magic number
for each side of the link so that "reflections" can be detected.
The protocol says that when the peer tries to negotiate
the same magic number, a NAK should be sent and a new magic
number should be chosen. During the period that the server
port has ECHO turned on, the client ppp sends LCP packets,
sees the same magic in the reflected packet and NAKs it. It
also sees the NAK reflect (which also means ppp must change
its magic). This produces a potentially enormous number of
magic number changes, all of which are happily piling into
the server's tty buffer. As soon as ppp starts on the server,
it's flooded with magic number changes and almost immediately
decides it's tried enough to negotiate LCP and gives up.
Meanwhile, the client, who no longer sees the reflections,
becomes happy just in time to see a hangup from the server.
<p>The only way to circumvent this is to put the following line
in your ppp.conf file:
<verb>
set openmode passive
</verb>
<p>This tells ppp to wait for the server to initiate LCP negotiations.
Some servers may never initiate negotiations. If this is the case,
please report it as a bug (using send-pr). Ppp will need to be
adjusted so that the user can configure a variable delay before
initiating LCP negotiations.
<sect2>
<heading>Ppp locks up shortly after connecting</heading>
<p>Prior to version 2.2.5 of FreeBSD, it was possible that your
link was disabled shortly after connection due to <tt/ppp/
mis-handling Predictor1 compression negotiation. This would
only happen if both sides tried to negotiate different
Compression Control Protocols (CCP). This problem is now
corrected, but if you're still running an old version of
<tt/ppp/, the problem can be circumvented with the line
<verb>
disable pred1
</verb>
<sect2>
<heading>Ppp locks up when I shell out to test it</heading>
<p>When you execute the <tt/shell/ or <tt/!/ command, <tt/ppp/
executes a shell (or if you've passed any arguements, <tt/ppp/
will execute those arguements). Ppp will wait for the command
to complete before continuing. If you attempt to use the
ppp link while running the command, the link will appear to have
frozen. This is because <tt/ppp/ is waiting for the command
to complete.
<p>If you wish to execute commands like this, use the
<tt/!bg/ command instead. This will execute the given command
in the background, and ppp can continue to service the link.
<sect2>
<heading>Ppp over a null-modem cable never exits</heading>
<p>There is no way for <tt/ppp/ to automatically determine that
a direct connection has been dropped. This is due to the
lines that are used in a null-modem serial cable. When using
this sort of connection, LQR should always be enabled with
the line
<verb>
enable lqr
</verb>
<p>LQR is accepted by default if negotiated by the peer.
<sect2>
<heading>Why does ppp dial for no reason in -auto mode</heading>
<p>If <tt/ppp/ is dialing unexpectedly, you must determine the
cause, and set up Dial filters (dfilters) to prevent such dialing.
<p>To determine the cause, use the following line:
<verb>
set log +tcp/ip
</verb>
<p>This will log all traffic through the connection. The next
time the line comes up unexpectedly, you will see the reason
logged with a convenient timestamp next to it.
<p>You can now disable dialing under these circumstances. Usually,
this sort of problem arises due to DNS lookups. To prevent
DNS lookups from establishing a connection (this will <bf/not/
prevent <tt/ppp/ from passing the packets through an established
connection), use the following:
<verb>
set dfilter 1 deny udp src eq 53
set dfilter 2 deny udp dst eq 53
set dfilter 3 permit 0/0 0/0
</verb>
<p>This is not always suitable, as it will effectively break your
demand-dial capabilities - most programs will need a DNS lookup
before doing any other network related things.
<p>In the DNS case, you should try to determine what is actually
trying to resolve a host name. A lot of the time,
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sendmail"
name="sendmail"> is the culprit. You should make sure that you tell
sendmail not to do any DNS lookups in its configuration file. See
the section on <ref id="ispmail" name="Mail Configuration"> for
details on how to create your own configuration file and what should
go into it. You may also want to add the following line to your
<bf/.mc/ file:
<verb>
define(`confDELIVERY_MODE', `d')dnl
</verb>
<p>This will make sendmail queue everything until the queue is
run (usually, sendmail is invoked with ``-bd -q30m'', telling it
to run the queue every 30 minutes) or until a ``sendmail -q''
is done (perhaps from your ppp.linkup file).
<sect2>
<heading>What do these CCP errors mean</heading>
<p>I keep seeing the following errors in my log file:
<verb>
CCP: CcpSendConfigReq
CCP: Received Terminate Ack (1) state = Req-Sent (6)
</verb>
<p>This is because ppp is trying to negotiate Predictor1
compression, and the peer does not want to negotiate any
compression at all. The messages are harmless, but if you
wish to remove them, you can disable Predictor1 compression
locally too:
<verb>
disable pred1
</verb>
<sect2>
<heading>Ppp locks up during file transfers with IO errors</heading>
<p>Under FreeBSD 2.2.2 and before, there was a bug in the tun
driver that prevents incoming packets of a size larger than
the tun interface's MTU size. Receipt of a packet greater than
the MTU size results in an IO error being logged via syslogd.
<p>The ppp specification says that an MRU of 1500 should
<bf>always</bf> be accepted as a minimum, despite any LCP
negotiations, therefore it is possible that should you decrease
the MTU to less than 1500, your ISP will transmit packets of
1500 regardless, and you will tickle this non-feature - locking
up your link.
<p>The problem can be circumvented by never setting an MTU of
less than 1500 under FreeBSD 2.2.2 or before.
<sect2>
<heading>Why doesn't ppp log my connection speed?</heading>
<p>In order to log all lines of your modem ``conversation'',
you must enable the following:
<verb>
set log +connect
</verb>
<p>This will make
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp">
log everything up until the last requested "expect" string.
<p>If you wish to see your connect speed and are using PAP or CHAP
(and therefore don't have anything to "chat" after the CONNECT
in the dial script - no "set login" script), you must make sure that
you instruct ppp to "expect" the whole CONNECT line, something like
this:
<verb>
set dial "ABORT BUSY ABORT NO\\sCARRIER TIMEOUT 4 \"\" ATZ OK-ATZ-OK ATDT\\T TIMEOUT 60 CONNECT \\c \\n"
</verb>
<p>Here, we get our CONNECT, send nothing, then expect a line-feed,
forcing <bf/ppp/ to read the whole CONNECT response.
<sect2>
<heading>Ppp ignores the `\' character in my chat script</heading>
<p>Ppp parses each line in your config files so that it can
interpret strings such as <tt/set phone "123 456 789"/ correctly
(and realize that the number is actually only <bf/one/ argument.
In order to specify a ``"'' character, you must escape it using
a backslash (``\'').
<p>When the chat interpreter parses each argument, it re-interprets
the argument in order to find any special escape sequences such
as ``\P'' or ``\T'' (see the man page). As a result of this
double-parsing, you must remember to use the correct number of
escapes.
<p>If you wish to actually send a ``\'' character to (say) your
modem, you'd need something like:
<verb>
set dial "\"\" ATZ OK-ATZ-OK AT\\\\X OK"
</verb>
<p>resulting in the following sequence:
<verb>
ATZ
OK
AT\X
OK
</verb>
<p>or
<verb>
set phone 1234567
set dial "\"\" ATZ OK ATDT\\T"
</verb>
<p>resulting in the following sequence:
<verb>
ATZ
OK
ATDT1234567
</verb>
<sect2>
<heading>None of this helps - I'm desperate !</heading>
<p>If all else fails, send as much information as you can,
including your config files, how you're starting <tt/ppp/,
the relevent parts of your log file and the output of the
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?netstat"
name="netstat -rn"> command (before and after connecting) to the
<url url="mailto:freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org"
name="freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org"> mailing list or the
<url url="news:comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc"
name="comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc"> news group, and someone
should point you in the right direction.
<sect1>
<heading>I can't create a <tt>/dev/ed0</tt> device!</heading>
<p>In the Berkeley networking framework, network interfaces are only
directly accessible by kernel code. Please see the
<tt>/etc/rc.network</tt> file and the manual pages for the various
network programs mentioned there for more information. If this
leaves you totally confused, then you should pick up a book
describing network administration on another BSD-related
operating system; with few significant exceptions, administering
networking on FreeBSD is basically the same as on SunOS 4.0 or
Ultrix.
<sect1>
<heading>How can I setup Ethernet aliases?</heading>
<p>Add ``<tt/netmask 0xffffffff/'' to your <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ifconfig" name="ifconfig">
command-line like the following:
<verb>
ifconfig ed0 alias 204.141.95.2 netmask 0xffffffff
</verb>
<sect1>
<heading>How do I get my 3C503 to use the other network port?</heading>
<p>If you want to use the other ports, you'll have to specify an
additional parameter on the
<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ifconfig"
name="ifconfig"> command line. The
default port is ``<tt/link0/''. To use the AUI port instead of
the BNC one, use ``<tt/link2/''. These flags should be specified
using the ifconfig_* variables in <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc.conf" name="/etc/rc.conf">.
<sect1>
<heading>I'm having problems with NFS to/from FreeBSD.</heading>
<p>Certain PC network cards are better than others (to put it
mildly) and can sometimes cause problems with network intensive
applications like NFS.
<p>See <url url="../handbook/nfs.html" name="the Handbook entry on NFS">
for more information on this topic.
<sect1>
<heading>Why can't I NFS-mount from a Linux box?</heading>
<p>Some versions of the Linux NFS code only accept mount requests
from a privileged port; try
<verb>
mount -o -P linuxbox:/blah /mnt
</verb>
<sect1>
<heading>Why can't I NFS-mount from a Sun box?</heading>
<p>Sun workstations running SunOS 4.X only accept mount requests
from a privileged port; try
<verb>
mount -o -P sunbox:/blah /mnt
</verb>
<sect1>
<heading>I'm having problems talking PPP to NeXTStep machines.</heading>
<p>Try disabling the TCP extensions in <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc.conf" name="/etc/rc.conf"> by
changing the following variable to NO:
<verb>
tcp_extensions=NO
</verb>
<p>Xylogic's Annex boxes are also broken in this regard and you must
use the above change to connect thru them.
<sect1>
<heading>How do I enable IP multicast support?</heading>
<p>Multicast host operations are fully supported in FreeBSD 2.0 and
above by default. If you want your box to run as a multicast router, you
will need to load the <tt/ip_mroute_mod/ loadable kernel module
and run <tt/mrouted/.
<p>For more information:
<verb>
Product Description Where
--------------- ----------------------- ---------------------------------------
faq.txt Mbone FAQ ftp.isi.edu:/mbone/faq.txt
imm/immserv IMage Multicast ftp.hawaii.edu:/paccom/imm.src.tar.Z
for jpg/gif images.
nv Network Video. ftp.parc.xerox.com:
/pub/net-reseach/exp/nv3.3alpha.tar.Z
vat LBL Visual Audio Tool. ftp.ee.lbl.gov:
/conferencing/vat/i386-vat.tar.Z
wb LBL White Board. ftp.ee.lbl.gov:
/conferencing/wb/i386-wb.tar.Z
mmcc MultiMedia Conference ftp.isi.edu:
Control program /confctrl/mmcc/mmcc-intel.tar.Z
rtpqual Tools for testing the ftp.psc.edu:/pub/net_tools/rtpqual.c
quality of RTP packets.
vat_nv_record Recording tools for vat ftp.sics.se:archive/vat_nv_record.tar.Z
and nv.
</verb>
<sect1>
<heading>Which network cards are based on the DEC PCI chipset?</heading>
<p>Here is a list compiled by <url url="mailto:gfoster@driver.nsta.org"
name="Glen Foster">:
<verb>
Vendor Model
----------------------------------------------
ASUS PCI-L101-TB
Accton ENI1203
Cogent EM960PCI
Compex ENET32-PCI
D-Link DE-530
DEC DE435
Danpex EN-9400P3
JCIS Condor JC1260
Linksys EtherPCI
Mylex LNP101
SMC EtherPower 10/100 (Model 9332)
SMC EtherPower (Model 8432)
TopWare TE-3500P
Zynx ZX342
</verb>
<sect1>
<heading>Why do I have to use the FQDN for hosts on my site?</heading>
<p>You will probably find that the host is actually in a different
domain; for example, if you are in foo.bar.edu and you wish to reach
a host called ``mumble'' in the bar.edu domain, you will have to
refer to it by the fully-qualified domain name, ``mumble.bar.edu'',
instead of just ``mumble''.
<p>Traditionally, this was allowed by BSD BIND resolvers. However
the current version of <htmlurl
url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?named" name="bind"> that ships
with FreeBSD no longer provides default abbreviations for non-fully
qualified domain names other than the domain you are in.
So an unqualified host <tt>mumble</tt> must either be found
as <tt>mumble.foo.bar.edu</tt>, or it will be searched for
in the root domain.
<p>This is different from the previous behavior, where the
search continued across <tt>mumble.bar.edu</tt>, and
<tt>mumble.edu</tt>. Have a look at RFC 1535 for why this
was considered bad practice, or even a security hole.
<p>As a good workaround, you can place the line
<verb>
search foo.bar.edu bar.edu
</verb>
<p>instead of the previous
<verb>
domain foo.bar.edu
</verb>
<p>into your <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?resolv.conf"
name="/etc/resolv.conf"> file. However, make sure that the search order
does not go beyond the ``boundary between local and public
administration'', as RFC 1535 calls it.
<sect1>
<heading>``Permission denied'' for all networking operations.</heading>
<p>If you have compiled your kernel with the <tt/IPFIREWALL/
option, you need to be aware that the default policy as of
2.1.7R (this actually changed during 2.1-STABLE development)
is to deny all packets that are not explicitly allowed.
<p>If you had unintentionally misconfigured your system for
firewalling, you can restore network operability by typing
the following while logged in as root:
<verb>
ipfw add 65534 allow all from any to any
</verb>
<p>For further information on configuring a FreeBSD firewall,
see the <url url="../handbook/firewalls.html" name="Handbook section">.
<sect1>
<heading>How much overhead does IPFW incur?</heading>
<p>The answer to this depends mostly on your rule set and processor
speed. For most applications dealing with ethernet and small
rule sets, the answer is, negligible. For those of you that need
actual measurements to satisfy your curiosity, read on.
<p>The following measurements were made using 2.2.5-STABLE on
a 486-66. IPFW was modified to measure the time spent within
the <tt/ip_fw_chk/ routine, displaying the results to the console
every 1000 packets.
<p>Two rule sets, each with 1000 rules were tested. The first set
was designed to demonstrate a worst case scenario by repeating the
rule:
<verb>
ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 55555
</verb>
<p>This demonstrates worst case by causing most of IPFW's packet
check routine to be executed before finally deciding that the
packet does not match the rule (by virtue of the port number).
Following the 999th iteration of this rule was an <tt>allow ip
from any to any</tt>.
<p>The second set of rules were designed to abort the rule
check quickly:
<verb>
ipfw add deny ip from 1.2.3.4 to 1.2.3.4
</verb>
<p>The nonmatching source IP address for the above rule causes
these rules to be skipped very quickly. As before, the 1000th
rule was an <tt>allow ip from any to any</tt>.
<p>The per-packet processing overhead in the former case was
approximately 2.703ms/packet, or roughly 2.7 microseconds per
rule. Thus the theoretical packet processing limit with these
rules is around 370 packets per second. Assuming 10Mbps ethernet
and a ~1500 byte packet size, we would only be able to achieve a
55.5% bandwidth utilization.
<p>For the latter case each packet was processed in
approximately 1.172ms, or roughly 1.2 microseconds per rule.
The theoretical packet processing limit here would be about
853 packets per second, which could consume 10Mbps ethernet
bandwidth.
<p>The excessive number of rules tested and the nature of those
rules do not provide a real-world scenario -- they were used only
to generate the timing information presented here. Here are a
few things to keep in mind when building an efficient rule set:
<itemize>
<item>Place an `established' rule early on to handle the
majority of TCP traffic. Don't put any <tt>allow tcp</tt>
statements before this rule.
<item>Place heavily triggered rules earlier in the rule
set than those rarely used (<bf>without changing the
permissiveness of the firewall</bf>, of course). You can see
which rules are used most often by examining the packet counting
statistics with <tt>ipfw -a l</tt>.
</itemize>
</sect>