Here are some newbie-like networking questions that i hope some of you experts can elucidate for me:
On my `ipfwadm -leO` output i notice among other rules... IP firewall output rules, default policy: deny pkts bytes type prot opt tosa tosx source destination ports 0 0 acc udp ---- 0xFF 0x00 0.0.0.0/0 224.0.0.0/4 * -> * 0 0 acc icmp ---- 0xFF 0x00 0.0.0.0/0 224.0.0.0/4 * [columns omitted for space] this is something that appeared after an 'apt-get upgrade' (currently in frozen with a slink kernel). Q: what's the 224.0.0.0 ip/netmask for? Q: what's the scheme behind ports '* -> *'? With a netmask of /4 digits, the 224 (decimal) translates to 'E0' (hex); so valid values for the first 'dot' are anything from 224 (E0) to 239 (EF). I'm familiar with some reserved blocks of IP numbers, such as 168.192.*.* and 127.0.0.1 -- so, what's (E*).*.*.* for? --- in my logs (brought to my attention via logcheck) i get these a lot: Jun 20 00:18:00 server kernel: IP fw-in deny eth0 ICMP/10 172.146.51.93 224.0.0.2 L=28 S=0x00 I=50959 F=0x0000 T=128 Jun 20 00:18:03 server kernel: IP fw-in deny eth0 ICMP/10 172.146.51.93 224.0.0.2 L=28 S=0x00 I=51215 F=0x0000 T=128 Jun 20 00:17:57 server kernel: IP fw-in deny eth0 ICMP/10 172.146.51.93 224.0.0.2 L=28 S=0x00 I=50191 F=0x0000 T=128 there's that 224.0.0.* address, which may be unrelated. the other address is always a 172.*.*.* number; the addresses change, but for each 172.*.*.* address there's always four to twleve hits or so. Q: is this something to worry about--or what's going on? --- and from `ifconfig` i see... eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:60:8C:82:C4:59 inet addr:192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1394446 errors:5 dropped:0 overruns:5 frame:5 TX packets:1352798 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:2 collisions:385 Interrupt:10 Base address:0x300 eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:60:97:1E:67:FD inet addr:208.33.90.85 Bcast:208.33.90.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:717781 errors:10 dropped:0 overruns:11 frame:10 TX packets:709231 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:4 collisions:1325 Interrupt:11 Base address:0x340 Q: how bad is it to see errors > 0? Q: are collisions something to look into? Q: overruns/frame/carrier != 0 -- do they need fixing?