Re: *** draft 4 - press release ***

Anthony DeBoer (adb@onramp.ca)
21 Jan 1999 15:03:36 -0000

Mike Jagdis <mike@roan.co.uk> writes:
> On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> > Now, it is possible to have a powerful installation
> > program that learns about the hardware that would install Linux
> > with no human intervention at all. In fact, the default configuration
> > could have one of those "harmless" never to be routed IP addresses and
> > even a default machine name.
>
> There are no "harmless" IP addresses. Those that aren't routed
> are often used on internal networks. If you default to one of
> those you could still collide with a machine - possibly a critical
> workgroup server :-).

Well, there's one safe IP address, and that's 127.0.0.1, and "localhost"
works as a default hostname.

It makes absolutely no sense to ifconfig an interface without a valid
address that will work on the attached network. The only default that
might make sense is to make a DHCP query; if somebody on the network
gives you an address, then use it, and do a PTR query[1] to get the
associated hostname. If no response comes back, then leave the ethercard
down until somebody manually enters an IP number. And the install
program should give a chance to make that manual setting, do the DHCP
query, or leave the machine off the network. Some people do see the
sense in securing a machine before opening it for business.

[1] if the response includes nameserver IP numbers, then throw them in
resolv.conf, else start named locally.

-- 
Anthony DeBoer <adb@onramp.ca>


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