HELIOS PCShare 3.0 User manual

A 3 Standard UNIX utility programs

The following standard UNIX tools can help you when configuring PCShare and diagnosing network problems. Other UNIX tools, such as HELIOS' swho command, are described in 7.1 "File server utility programs".

Important: Your UNIX host name must never include a slash ("/") character (for example "my_rs/6000"). It is best to use lower case characters only, no spaces, no underlines and no punctuation marks except hyphens.

A slash causes problems with EtherShare, PCShare, and other UNIX programs. This is because "/" is also the directory path separator.

The procedure to follow to determine the host's name and internet address depends on the UNIX operating system type, and sometimes on its version, too. The following programs are often available:

hostname,
uname, arp

The "hostname" command (BSD systems) or the "uname" command (System V systems) can be used to determine a UNIX computer's host name. Call "uname" with the -n switch (uname -n). Use the -a switch instead to see your operating system version, too.

"arp" is used to display and edit the UNIX host's "internet address/computer name" conversion table. If the "arp" command includes a computer name as a command line argument, it tries to get more information on the specified computer, including its internet address. Although the conversion table does normally not contain information on your own host, it is often still possible to determine its internet address in this way, for example:

lux$ <path>/arp lux

0021-237 arp: The entry lux (192.9.200.11) is not

present in the local arp table.

ifstat

This tool ("$PCDIR/etc/ifstat") is used to determine the TCP/IP configurations for each built-in network interface.

lux$ ifstat

lo0: flags 2121<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
le0: flags 2147<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING
MULTICAST> mtu 8232
inet 172.16.0.1 netmask 255.255.252.0
broadcast 172.16.3.255