Oki 6100E+ manual Configuration Files

Section 4 - Appendix B - Application Considerations

Configuration Files

The purpose of RARP is to look up a 32-bit IP address given a 48-bit network hardware address. The RARP server (which is usually a UNIX workstation running a rarpd daemon) performs this function using two configuration files and one or more daemons. The configuration files are “/etc/hosts” and “/etc/ethers” and the daemon is called rarpd. A name can be assigned to any device on a network and is arbitrary. For the following examples the name used for the OkiLAN 6100e+ is OKIPRINTER. Remember that this name is arbitrary; a customer can assign any name.

/etc/hosts: The “/etc/hosts” file is where each entry maps a host name to an IP address. An example entry is shown below.

192.168.42.55 OKIPRINTER

/etc/ethers: The “/etc/ethers” file is where each entry maps a host name to a network hardware address. An example entry is shown below.

00:02:16:17:50:A4 OKIPRINTER

The following sequence of events occurs during the power up of the OkiLAN 6100e+ using RARP:

1.The OkiLAN 6100e+ powers up but does not know its IP address. However, it does know its network hardware address.

2.It sends out a RARP request message with its network hardware address. For this example, the OkiLAN 6100e+ address is 00:02:16:17:50:A4.

3.The rarpd daemon running on a RARP server (in this example the RARP server is a UNIX workstation) sees the RARP request along with the network hardware address in the “/etc/ethers” file. The rarpd daemon finds the host name, OKIPRINTER, listed as the name associated with the network hardware address.

IV - 60 OKI OkiLAN 6100e+ User’s Guide