NAME

ipallocd − Ethernet-to-IP address allocator

SYNOPSIS

/usr/etc/rpc.ipallocd

AVAILABILITY

Sun386i systems only. 

DESCRIPTION

ipallocd is a daemon that determines or temporarily allocates IP addresses within a network segment.  The service is only available on the system which is home to the address authority for the network segment, currently the YP master of the hosts.byaddr map, although the service is not tied to Yellow Pages.  ipallocd has complete knowledge of the hosts listed in the Yellow Pages, and, if the system is running the name server, of any hosts listed in internet domain tables automatically accessed on that host through gethostbyaddr(3N). 

This protocol uses DES authentication (the Sun Secure RPC protocol) to restrict access to this function.  The only clients privileged to allocate addresses are those whose net IDs are in the networks group.  For machine IDs, the machine must be a YP server. 

The daemon uses permanent entries in the /etc/ethers and /etc/hosts files when they exist and are usable.  In other cases, such as when a system is new to the network, ipallocd will enter a temporary mapping in a local cache.  Entries in the cache are removed when there have been no references to a given entry in the last hour.  This cache survives system crashes so that IP addresses will remain consistent. 

The daemon also provides corresponding IP address to name mapping. 

If the file /etc/ipalloc.netrange exists, ipallocd refuses to allocate addresses on networks not listed in it, or for which no free address is available. 

FILES

/etc/ipalloc.cache temporary cache

/etc/ipalloc.netrange
optional file to allocate network addresses

SEE ALSO

ipalloc(3R), pnp(3R), ipalloc.netrange(5), ipallocd(8C), netconfig(8C), pnpboot(8C), rarpd(8C)

Security Features Guide

Sun Release 4.0  —  Last change: 3 May 1989