SMP and networking under FreeBSD 5.3

[Alex Zbyslaw]

Joe wrote:

>Hello,
>
>ps:
>
>root    542  0.0  0.7  1320  812  ??  Ss   Tue09AM   2:22.10
>/sbin/natd -dynamic -d -log_ipfw_denied -log_denied -dynamic -n
>dc0
>  
>
Is this just after a reboot?  If so, it does show that natd is running, 
so I'm not sure why you're getting the message you were getting.

>ifconfig:
>pccard_ifconfig="NO"
>ifconfig_xl0="inet 192.168.0.15  netmask 255.255.255.0"
>ifconfig_dc0="DHCP"
>  
>
That looks right.

>So FreeBSD 5.3 isn't production?  I had read somewhere that
>5.2.1 wasn't production and that 5.3 was supposed to be
>production.
>
>  
>
I'm not sure if I'm getting the terminology quite right, but I believe 
5.4 was the first "-STABLE" release.  Up until then 4.X was still the 
"recommended" release to use unless you required 5.X for particular 
hardware and were prepared to accept that it might not be quite 
"production ready".  My memory, when I was tracking this stuff, was that 
a lot of improvements went into 5.4.  (I'm sure a lot went into 5.3 as 
well, but I'm reasonably sure it was not made the "-STABLE" or 
"recommended" branch or whatever).

>I'll look into upgrading to 5.4, it will take a bit of time to
>do that though.  
>
I don't think it's as bad as you might think -- my experience is that 
upgrades within a major release number (4.X, or 5.X) have been very 
easy.  The compiling can take time, but I just try to make it coincide 
with a good movie on the telly, or a sunny afternoon in the garden.  The 
bit I don't like is mergemaster, just because it's fiddly and hands on 
and requires lots of concentration.  (Mergemaster is a great deal better 
than anything which preceded it, which if you go back far enough was 
"nothing at all".  It's not so much mergemaster that I dislike as just 
staring at the diffs trying to decipher how the OS-related changes 
affect my own changes).

The handbook has a great section on upgrading.  I'd recommend printing 
it off, especially if upgrading isn't something you have done often.

Please note, I'm not saying that upgrading will fix your problem, but it 
might and 5.4 ought to be better than 5.3.

Since no-one else has yet chimed in with any help, it might be worth 
posting a brand new message (with a more descriptive subject line) and 
just summarise the relevant bits of config and the natd error you are 
getting.  (Summarise your natd_* config variables, ifconfig_* variables, 
OS version and an excerpt from your firewall showing any divert rules.  
That ought to be enough).


One final thought.  Did you start with a fresh install of 5.3?  Did you 
upgrade from 4.X?  If the latter, then make sure that you don't have any 
stray config/boot script files lying about.  The easiest way to do that 
would be to run mergemaster (I like -s -v as options).  You can always 
say "no" to everything, but you should study the list of "files in /etc 
which are not in CVS" and make sure that you recognize them all.  If 
there are some you don't recognize which sound like they might be 
network/natd/firewall related, then they may be causing your problem.


--Alex