missing ethers entry

[mr at racal-itd.co.uk]

We have been having problems for some time with ethers files. Maybe some
of the following will sound familiar. If you can explain, great.  If
you've had similar "funnies" I'd also like to here from you.

We sell Sun networks (server+diskless workstations) as turn-key systems,
thus we get to practice installing SunOS on empty networks.  The server is
typically a 3/280, clients are 3/140,3/60. Server is YP master, system is
on its own Ethernet. Nothing fancy in the SunOS installation.

Under 4.0.3 (and possibly earlier) we find that after installation the
/etc/ethers file for the server does not contain the server's Ethernet
address (just all the clients'). This sporadically causes the portmapper
on the server to disappear. Also, sometimes we cannnot rsh from client to
server (you get "Connection closed" immediately).  Putting the server in
/etc/ethers and updating YP fixes it.

Our main network (65+ hosts) runs YP with all hosts in it and we don't get
the problem (even though some servers do not have their own address in
their local /etc/ethers).

All comments welcome. Summary will be posted if anything useful turns up.

        Martin Reed, Racal Imaging Systems Ltd
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